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)

Author(s):  
Hieu Le Quoc ◽  

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.

Virittäjä ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 122 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Taru Nordlund

Artikkeli käsittelee suomentamiseen liittyviä ideologioita ja normeja 1800-luvun tietokirjallisuudessa. Tapaustutkimuksena on Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiön tietokirjojen suomennostoiminta 1800-luvun lopulla. Tutkimus kytkeytyy kääntämisen sosiologiaan ja historiaan, ja siinä arvioidaan myös, miten ja missä määrin historiallisia käännösprosesseja voidaan rekonstruoida. Käännösprosesseja lähestytään tarkastelemalla eri toimijoiden − kustantaja, kääntäjä, kieliasiantuntija, tekstin arvioija − osuutta käännösprosessissa. Tutkimuksen aineistona on kustantajan ja kääntäjän kääntämistä ja kielellisiä valintoja käsittelevä kirjeenvaihto, jonka avulla on mahdollista valottaa eri suunnista kääntäjän arkea, yhteisöllisiä arvoja ja normeja käännösvalintojen taustalla sekä niitä henkilökohtaisia asenteita, jotka ohjaavat kääntäjiä erilaisiin valintoihin. Analyysin tuloksena voi päätellä, että ammattikirjoittajina kääntäjät olivat hyvin tietoisia erilaisista kielellisistä ja kääntämiseen liittyvistä normeista. Käytännön työssä kääntäjät toimivat kuitenkin usein erilaisten normien ristipaineessa, jolloin vastakkain asettuivat esimerkiksi alkuteoksen luonteen säilyttäminen ja toisaalta sen kotouttaminen. Kääntäjät olivat myös tietoisia kielen vaihtelevista normeista, tunsivat käynnissä olevat kielikeskustelut ja mukauttivat herkästi kielenkäyttöään kulloinkin vallitsevien kirjakielen normien mukaiseksi.   Norms and ideologies of translation in light of correspondence between publisher and translator in 19th-century Finland This article analyses the ideologies and norms that guided the translation of works of non-fiction in 19th-century Finland. As a case study the article analyses the processes involved in the publication of non-fiction at the Werner Söderström Ltd publishing house at the end of the 19th century. The research takes as its base theories examining the sociology and history of translation. It also aims to evaluate how and to what extent historical translation processes can be reconstructed. Translation is approached as a collaborative process involving various actors: publisher, translator, language editor, and expert reader. The data consists of correspondence between publisher and translator that deals with matters of translation or language. This correspondence sheds light on the everyday life of the translator and the socially accepted norms and ideologies that guide the translation process. It also reveals the stance of publishers concerning the choice of translator, a factor that can lead to very different end products. The analysis shows that, as professional writers, translators at the end of the 19th century were well aware of contemporary translational norms. In practice, translators were caught between various conflicting pressures – regarding, for instance, questions such as whether one should follow the original text as close as possible to preserve its unique style or assimilate the text to a Finnish context to help the reader. The data also shows that translators were well aware of linguistic norms; they were acquainted with current and past debates, and in assimilating their use of language they remained sensitive to prevailing norms.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 396
Author(s):  
Maya El Hajj

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.


Somatechnics ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svenja J. Kratz

Abstract: Presented from an ArtScience practitioner's perspective, this paper provides an overview of Svenja Kratz's experience working as an artist within the area of cell and tissue culture at QUT's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI). Using The Absence of Alice, a multi-medium exhibition based on the experience of culturing cells, as a case study, the paper gives insight into the artist's approach to working across art and science and how ideas, processes, and languages from each discipline can intermesh and extend the possibilities of each system. The paper also provides an overview of her most recent artwork, The Human Skin Equivalent/Experience Project, which involves the creation of personal jewellery items incorporating human skin equivalent models grown from the artist's skin and participant cells. Referencing this project, and other contemporary bioart works, the value of ArtScience is discussed, focusing in particular on the way in which cross-art-science projects enable an alternative voice to enter into scientific dialogues and have the potential to yield outcomes valuable to both disciplines.


2021 ◽  
pp. 089124322110003
Author(s):  
Laura K. NelsoN ◽  
Kathrin Zippel

Implicit bias is one of the most successful cases in recent memory of an academic concept being translated into practice. Its use in the National Science Foundation ADVANCE program—which seeks to promote gender equality in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) careers through institutional transformation—has raised fundamental questions about organizational change. How do advocates translate theories into practice? What makes some concepts more tractable than others? What happens to theories through this translation process? We explore these questions using the ADVANCE program as a case study. Using an inductive, theory-building approach and combination of computational and qualitative methods, we investigate how the concept of implicit bias was translated into practice through the ADVANCE program and identify five key features that made implicit bias useful as a change framework in the academic STEM setting. We find that the concept of implicit bias works programmatically because it is (1) demonstrable, (2) relatable, (3) versatile, (4) actionable, and (5) impartial. While enabling the concept’s diffusion, these characteristics also limit its scope. We reflect on implications for gender theories of organizational change and for practitioners.


2016 ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
Reginaldo Francisco

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1980-4237.2014n16p91O teórico e crítico de tradução francês Antoine Berman afirma que as traduções literárias em suas formas tradicionais e dominantes representam um ato culturalmente etnocêntrico, isto é, que traz tudo à sua própria cultura, às suas normas e valores, buscando fazer com que se esqueça que se trata de uma tradução. Para se opor a essa prática dominante, o autor propõe uma tradução que não esconda o elemento estrangeiro na obra traduzida, e que para isso seja fiel à “letra” (lettre) do original. Essa oposição é muito conhecida também nos termos utilizados pelo teórico norte-americano Lawrence Venuti, que fala em “domesticação” (domestication) e “estrangeirização” (foreignization) para se referir respectivamente às práticas tradutórias que ocultam as diferenças culturais, adaptando tudo à cultura de chegada, e àquelas que mantêm a estranheza do texto original e da cultura de partida. Interpretações mais radicais das ideias desses autores podem levar a pensar a tradução como dividida nessas duas possibilidades, e muitas vezes à escolha de uma delas como ideal e a outra como condenável. Entretanto, assim como com dicotomias mais antigas (literal x livre, equivalência formal x equivalência dinâmica, etc.), também estas não são duas categorias estanques, podendo haver diferentes combinações de ambas na tradução de um mesmo texto, além de estratégias híbridas ou soluções que não representam nem uma nem outra posição. Neste trabalho discuto a problematização dessa dicotomia, incluindo exemplos de minha tradução do italiano para o português do livro infantojuvenil O diário de Gian Burrasca, de Luigi Bertelli (Vamba).ABSTRACTFrench translation theorist and critic Antoine Berman states that in their traditional and dominant forms literary translations represent a culturally ethnocentric act, which adapts everything to its own culture, standards and values, seeking to make readers forget that they are reading a translation. To oppose this dominant practice, the author suggests a kind of translation that would not hide the foreign element in the translated work, one that is faithful to the “letter” (lettre) of the original text. A similar opposition to that / to Berman’s is also well-known through the terms “domestication” and “foreignization” as defined by American theorist Lawrence Venuti, who uses them to refer to translation practices that on one hand conceal cultural differences, adapting everything to the target culture, and on the other keep the strangeness of both source text and culture in the translation. Radical interpretations of these authors’ ideas may lead to the misconception that translation is divided into those two possibilities, and often to the judgement that one of them is ideal and the other condemnable. Nevertheless, as with other older dichotomies (literal vs. free translation, formal vs. dynamic equivalence, etc.), these are not clearly distinguishable and opposed categories. There may be different combinations of them in the translation of a text, as well as hybrid strategies or solutions that do not represent either one of them. In this paper I discuss the problems of such dichotomy, drawing examples from my translation of Luigi Bertelli’s book Il giornalino di Gian Burrasca from Italian to Portuguese.Keywords: foreignization; domestication; dichotomy.


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