scholarly journals Cultural Identity in Sinan Antoon’s Self-Translated “The Corpse Washer”

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Nibras A. M. Al-Omar

Self-translation can be a powerful tool in the transmission of cultural identity. The Baghdad-born American Sinan Antoon, as self-translator of his successful novel “The Corpse Washer”, was awarded the Banipal Saif Ghobash prize for his invisibility and fluency in the Target Language, English. Accordingly, he is expected to have domesticated the Source Text cultural idiosyncrasies in the Target Text at the expense of accuracy, and met the English reader expectations in consequence. Apparently, he has accomplished a readable translation. Still, it is assumed that he has also chosen to be visible in many instances of his self-translation. Such visibility is substantiated by retaining the Arabic cultural items in English through foreignization. There is ambivalence here. Antoon’s intended visibility as a self-translator is attributed to his emotional and cultural involvement in the cause of his country of origin, Iraq. His self-translation is an attempt to avoid cultural alienation, make a difference, let the Target Text readers be aware of his cultural identity, and achieve universality. 

Literator ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
W. Cloete ◽  
M. Wenzel

The translation of “cultural identity” in a novel such as “Kringe in ’n bos” contributes towards the definition of a uniquely South African representation of time and space in the global context. When translation is studied as a product of its socio-historical context, the translator is faced with problems of translating ideology and cultural identity in literature. Realia constitute a particular challenge to the translator because, according to the definition, precise equivalents of these words do not exist in other languages, which could cause shifts in the target language text. This article considers the concept of translatability and concludes that, despite the problems encountered, an adequate and satisfactory German translation from the Afrikaans original should be possible. The question of translatability assumes an interesting dimension as the Afrikaans novel was translated into English by the author herself. The privileged position of author-translator granted Matthee a near-perfect understanding of the different layers of meaning and intention of the source text and eliminated the gap between the author and translator. However, one gains the impression that the German translator (Stege) resorted to transference as a strategy to avoid translation and it emerges that most instances of definite mistranslations are, indeed, attributable to Stege’s unfamiliarity with the South African context.


Author(s):  
Melati Desa

ABSTRACT   : Language and culture influences each other and its effect is reflected in not only the way humans think, but could also be seen in a full load of figurative elements in creative writing, such as metaphors. Thus, the report examines the aspects of the transfer of meaning in the live metaphors in Haru No Yuki, literary Japanese texts written by Yukio Mishima (1925 – 1970) translated to Malay by Muhammad Haji Salleh (1993) as Salju Musim Bunga published by Penataran Ilmu. This report studies on the equivalence of the meaning of translated live metaphors from the source text to the target text. From the study of the equivalence of meaning can be evaluated that, if there is any type of losses of meaning in form of under translation, over translation or wrong translation. The retention of live metaphors in the target text produced an ideal translation. Universal live metaphors maintained by the translator, this approach produced an ideal translation in form of meaning and accepted by the culture and speakers of the target language. The conclusion of this report shows that, one of the factors in producing quality translations is to understand the elements of the original cultural metaphors contained in the source text. Keywords: live metaphor, personification, ideal translation, equivalence of meaning ABSTRAK         : Bahasa dan budaya saling mempengaruhi dan kesannya dapat dilihat bukan sahaja dalam cara manusia berpikir malah dalam penulisan kreatif yang memuatkan unsur figuratif, metafora misalnya. Justeru, kajian ini meneliti aspek pemindahan makna dalam terjemahan metafora hidup dan personifikasi yang terdapat dalam teks kesusasteraan Jepun, Haru No Yuki hasil penulisan Yukio Mishima (1925 – 1970) diterjemahkan oleh Muhammad Haji Salleh (1993) menjadi Salju Musim Bunga (SMB) terbitan Penataran Ilmu. Kertas kerja ini mengkaji keselarasan makna terjemahan metafora hidup dan personifikasi daripada teks sumber kepada teks sasaran. Daripada kajian keselarasan makna dapat dinilai sama ada berlaku peleburan makna metafora apabila terhasilnya terjemahan kurang, terjemahan lebih atau terjemahan salah. Kaedah pengekalan metafora hidup dalam teks sasaran didapati menghasilkan terjemahan ideal. Metafora hidup yang bersifat universal dikekalkan oleh penterjemah, pendekatan ini menghasilkan terjemahan ideal dari sudut makna dan diterima oleh budaya dan penutur bahasa sasaran. Sebagai kesimpulan, kajian ini menunjukkan bahawa, salah satu faktor dalam usaha untuk menghasilkan terjemahan bermutu adalah dengan memahami unsur metafora budaya asal teks sumber.   Kata kunci : metafora hidup, personifikasi, terjemahan ideal, persamaan makna


2011 ◽  
Vol 347-353 ◽  
pp. 426-430
Author(s):  
Da Lai Wang

This paper aims to account for sustainable development of different cultures in the context of globalization from the perspective of cultural functions of translation, which wield enormous power in constructing representations of the foreign culture and have far reaching effects in the target culture. According to cultural communication of translation, the major task of translation is to turn the cultural information in one language into another. Therefore, in the process of translating, the translator should try his utmost to allow his target language reader to acquire cultural information of the source text in order to promote mutual understanding between Western people and Eastern people and make different cultures co-exist peacefully and achieve sustainable development.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies ◽  
Noureldin Mohamed Abdelaal

Connotative meaning is one of the most challenging aspects in translation, especially between two different cultures such as English and Arabic. The problem is more aggravated when the translation occurs from a sacred and sophisticated text such as the Holy Quran. As a result, losses in translation occur. This study, therefore, is an attempt to identify the losses in the translation of connotative meaning in the Holy Quran, propose strategies to reduce such losses, and identify the causes of such losses. For this purpose, seven examples were extracted from the Holy Quran and were qualitatively analysed. The analysis of the extracted data revealed that connotative meaning was quite challenging in translation and losses occurred. These problems in preserving the connotative meaning of the source text (ST) word or playing it down are due to two main causes: the first cause is the lack of equivalence, while the second one is the translator’s failure to pick the most appropriate equivalent. Non-equivalence problems were mainly represented in lack of lexicalization, semantic complexity, culturally-bound terms, difference in expressive meaning, and difference in distinction of meaning between the source language (SL) and the target language (TL). Some strategies were suggested to reduce such loss in the translation of connotative meaning. These strategies include footnoting, transliteration, periphrastic translation, and accuracy of selecting the proper equivalent that can be achieved by triangulation procedures such as peer-checking and expert-checking.


Author(s):  
فؤاد بوعلي

أثارت الكتابة الإبداعية باللغات الأجنبية العديد من المواقف المتعارضة في الحقلين: الأكاديمي، والثقافي. فقد عرف تاريخ المغرب الحديث سجالاً قوياً بخصوص هوية الكتابات الإبداعية باللغات الأجنبية، بين مَن يرى فيها استلاباً ثقافياً، ومَن يرفض ربط الجنسية الأدبية بالانتماء اللغوي، بل وربطها بالمتخيّل الجماعي أكثر من أيّ شيء آخر، ثمّ بالمنتوج الأدبي بوصفه تجسيداً لهذا المتخيّل. فالتعبير عن الذات بلغة أجنبية يطرح للنقاش مفاهيم، مثل: الهوية الثقافية، والسلطة، والخصوصية، والعلاقة بالآخر. وباستخدام القراءة التراتبية التي ظهرت في الدراسات بعد الكولونيالية أمكننا إثبات التلازم بين استعمال اللغة الفرنسية في الإبداع ومسار الفرنكفونية بوصفها إيديولوجيا استعماريةً تفرض لغتها على الشعوب والفضاءات الذيلية. The debate over literary writing in a foreign language has instigated a lot of dichotomous points of view in Moroccan academic and cultural circles. History of modern Morocco has witnessed strong ongoing debates about the identity of creative writings in foreign language. There are those who would consider such writings as cultural alienation. Contrary to that, there are those who refuse to link literary text to language belonging, and link it instead to the collective imaginary and to the literary product as a manifestation of this imaginary. In fact, expressing the self by using a foreign language puts into question notions such as cultural identity, authority, nation-building, and otherness. By applying the theory of hierarchical reading which appeared in the post colonial studies, we have established the relationship between using French in creative writings and La Francophonie as a colonial ideology imposed on people and annexed spaces.


Author(s):  
Aleksandra Erić-Bukarica

The aim of this paper is to examine and describe similarities and differences in the use and distribution of modal verbs by contrasting English and Serbian legal texts. The corpus consists of an English version of The Convention on the Rights of the Child and its official Serbian translation. We started from an assumption that modal verbs are more frequent in legal texts in English than in Serbian, where we expected to find examples of lexical items with modal meanings instead. In addition, we assumed that due to its specific use in legal texts of this kind, the English modal ‘shall’ will show the highest frequency of occurrence. A total of one hundred and twenty six (126) modal verbs and a semi-modal ‘need not’ were found in the source text. The results of the analysis support the initial presumption that ‘shall’ will stand out as the most frequent of all modal verbs (60% of all occurrences). Despite the high occurrence rate of the legalistic ‘shall’ in the source text, translation solutions in the target language only rarely take the form of the modal verb. Most often deontic notions of imperative directness and necessity in Serbian legislative writings are expressed by means of the present indicative. The analysis also indicates that translation solutions for the remaining English modal verbs most often take the form of a modal verb or a modal lexeme with a corresponding meaning in Serbian.


2021 ◽  
pp. 238-256
Author(s):  
Amal Arrame

Translation is not simple transpositions operations or transcoding processes from one language to another, it involves complex mental processes where linguistics alone cannot be sufficient. It is a communication situation between two languages, Arabic and French in this case, where the objective of the translator is the transmission of his final product in a clear way, respecting the meaning and the author intention of the original version. Translation of phrases is a real dilemma for translators; however, it turns out that it is a necessity in order to discover the other, and to try to keep the same effect as the source text by giving it a stylistic touch typical to the target language. To this end, we have carefully chosen the corpus that we have translated. A corpus that reflects the originality of the Arabic language and the possibility of reducing the linguistic, cultural and discursive gaps between Arabic and French through translation. The translation processes we have chosen, take into account the target language, French in this case, its idioms, phrases and proverbs inventory, its particularity and, finally, its ability to comprehend the idea contained in the idioms of the source language.


Author(s):  
V. V. Konkulovskyy Konkulovskyy ◽  
V. V. Panchenko ◽  
V. V. Savchyshyn

The article outlines the peculiarities of humor of the original cinematic texts in «Brooklyn 9-9» series and their translation, as well as analyzes the most typical errors and causes of their occurrence. The «Brooklyn 9-9» series is full of jokes that can be classified as dark or so-called black humor. In the cinematic discourse films filled with such kind of humor are called black comedies. The latter is well-deservedly considered to be one of the most difficult genres of cinema. It is iconic for black comedies to incorporate jokes about different sacred things, such as race, human nature, diseases, funerals, disabilities, death, values and desires whilst this kind of humor is usually forbidden in a more formal setting. When working with cinematic text containing elements of black humor, a translator faces a serious number of problems and tasks. To render a source text into a target language adequately, it is important to identify the genre-stylistic dominant of the cinematic text, and to reproduce story-forming speech acts in different contexts. For black comedy cinematic texts chronotopic, characterological, compositional and lexical-semantic contexts will be relevant. According to these, the examples of black humor and puns in «Brooklyn 9-9» series were analyzed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Indra Grietēna

The paper reviews publications by Latvian linguists looking at the main translation problems within the context of the EU between 2005 and 2010. The author analyses the publications from three aspects: general aspects of translation problems and practices within the EU context, particular translation problems, and methodological publications providing guidelines for translators working within the EU context. The author reveals discussions on the ways translation influences language in general, the role of the source language for the development of the target language, and the role and responsibility of a translator at the ‘historical crossroads’. The article discusses a number of EU-specific translation problems, including source language interference, problems of the translator’s visibility and a translation’s transparency, ‘false friends’, and linguistic and contextual untranslatability. The author briefly summarizes the contents of guidelines and manuals for translators working within the EU context, highlighting the main differences between English and Latvian written language practices, literal (word-for-word) translation and the translator’s relationship with the source text. The publications selected and analysed have been published either in conference proceedings or in academic journals from the leading Latvian institutions in the field of translation: Ventspils University College, the University of Latvia, the State Language Commission of Latvia and Translation and Terminology Centre of Latvia.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-170
Author(s):  
Nasimah Abdullah ◽  
Lubna Abd. Rahman ◽  
Abur Hamdi Usman

A mutashabihat verse (anthropomorphism) is a verse that contains many interpretations as it has various dimensions of meaning. Explicitation is one of the translation procedures introduced by Vinay and Darbelnet as an effort to make the target language readers understand clearly the implicit meaning contained in the source text. In other words, the implicit meaning contained in the source text can be revealed into the target text through this procedure. A translator whose role is to transfer the meaning of source text is always bounded by a certain ideology that will influence his translation works. This study aims to examine the forms of explicitation used in the translation of the mutashabihat verses in the Quran and relate them to translators’ ideologies. This study adopted a qualitative approach that led to the analysis of text content of the Quran, which is elaborated descriptively by selecting three (3) words found in the text of the Quran that is related to Allah, as the sample of the study which are )يد( ,)استوى( and (أعين ). The corpus texts used are the Malay Quran translation by Abdullah Basmeih, Mahmud Yunus, and Zaini Dahlan. The findings showed that the translation of the mutashabihat verses used various forms of explicitation to enhance a clearer understanding of the target readers to the meaning of the Qur'an, such as lexical specification, the addition of explanatory remarks, additional information in brackets and footnotes. In addition, studies found that Mahmud Yunus and Zaini Dahlan retained the meaning of translated mutashabihat verses literally without giving an esoteric interpretation of the Quran and sometimes inclined towards the ideology of al-Ta’wil. On the other hand, Abdullah Basmeih was more prone to the ideologies of al-Ta’wil and al-Ithbat bi Dawabit in translating the verses. ABSTRAK Ayat mutashabihat ialah ayat yang mengandungi banyak pentafsiran kerana mempunyai pelbagai dimensi makna. Eksplisitasi pula ialah salah satu prosedur terjemahan yang diperkenalkan oleh Vinay dan Darbelnet sebagai usaha agar pembaca bahasa sasaran memahami dengan jelas makna implisit yang terkandung di dalam teks sumber. Melalui prosedur ini, bentuk makna implisit yang terkandung di dalam teks sumber dapat dizahirkan ke dalam teks sasaran. Penterjemah selaku pihak yang memainkan peranan dalam memindahkan makna sebenarnya sentiasa terikat dengan ideologi tertentu yang akan mewarnai teks sasaran yang dihasilkannya. Kajian ini bertujuan meneliti bentuk eksplisitasi yang terdapat dalam terjemahan ayat-ayat mutashabihat dalam al-Quran serta menghubungkaitkannya dengan pengaruh aliran pemikiran yang dipegang oleh penterjemah. Kajian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif yang menjurus kepada analisis kandungan teks al-Quran yang dihurai secara deskriptif dengan memilih tiga (3) perkataan yang dinisbahkan kepada Allah SWT yang terdapat dalam teks al-Quran sebagai sampel kajian iaitu lafaz )ىوتسا(, )دي( dan (أعين ). Korpus kajian pula adalah teks al-Quran yang diterjemahkan oleh Abdullah Basmeih, Mahmud Yunus dan Zaini Dahlan. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bahawa terjemahan ayat-ayat mutashabihat menggunakan pelbagai bentuk eksplisitasi untuk memberi kefahaman yang lebih jelas kepada pembaca sasaran terhadap makna al-Quran iaitu bentuk pengkhususan, penambahan maklumat, maklumat tambahan dalam kurungan dan nota kaki. Selain itu, kajian juga mendapati bahawa Mahmud Yunus dan Zaini Dahlan mengekalkan makna literal teks al-Quran tanpa takwilan dan kadang-kadang condong kepada aliran pemikiran al-Ta’wil dalam menterjemahkan ayat mutashabihat. Manakala Abdullah Basmeih pula lebih cenderung kepada aliran pemikiran al-Takwil dan al-Ithbat bi Dawabit dalam memberikan maksud ayat mutashabihat.


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