Traduire les voix de la nature / Translating the Voices of Nature (= Vita Traductiva 11)

In response to increasing worldwide interest in eco-translation, or the ecology of translation—fed above all by the pressuring effects of climate change and increasing concern for the environment, as well as a new awareness of the role of translation in the fight for a better, more sustainable future—Kristiina Taivalkoski-Shilov and Bruno Poncharal have produced a valuable overview of some of the central themes in the field. The volume is certainly timely, considering the increased interest in eco-translation in recent years, at least since Cronin’s (2017) seminal work, and the number of conferences and panels dedicated to the topic (most recently at the IATIS 2021 conference in Barcelona).

Conceptualizing translation in Poland in 2018

This paper aims to provide an account of our survey on the semiotic nature of the concept of translation among young Polish native speakers. The methodological strategy adopted is a con­structive replication of Sandra Halverson’s survey conducted in Norway in 1997. We claim, in our main hypothesis (stemming from a theoretical background of prototype semantics, which we used for measuring our object), that the concept of translation is not uniform and includes different semiotic types of translation, some of which are perceived as central (prototypical), and others as peripheral. According to our additional hypothesis, young Polish native speakers have a broad notion of translation (encompassing a wide range of intralingual and intersemiotic translations), even broader than their Norwegian counterparts, more than twenty years ago. Our data has been collected in 2018 using a seven-item questionnaire (seven different text pairs) with a seven-value scale from 103 subjects. While the main hypothesis has been confirmed, the additional hypothesis was rejected, with Polish respondents conceiving the concept of translation more narrowly. The methodological format of a replication produced an ambivalent effect: on the one hand, it yielded positive incentive, and on the other hand, it became our principal hindrance.

Opera in Translation: Unity and Diversity

The edited volume Opera in Translation: Unity and Diversity, published by John Benjamins in 2020, can be viewed—at least through the eyes of all opera aficionados and interdisciplinary schol­ars connected with musical theater—as a logical and much-awaited continuation of both theoret­ical and more pragmatically oriented research on the ever-growing topic of translating operas (and artworks within musical theater in general).

Cooperation, risk, trust

Within the general approach known as translator ethics, complementary roles are played by the concepts of cooperation, risk, and trust. Cooperation, as a technical term, describes the attainment of mutual benefits as the desired outcome of an interaction, indeed as the foundation of social life. In translator ethics, the aim is more specifically to enhance long-term cooperation between cultures. The concept of risk is then used to think about the probabilities of that general aim not being obtained and what kinds of strategies and efforts can be employed to avert that outcome by increasing mutual benefits. Trust, finally, characterizes the relationship that translators must have with those around them in order for them to contribute to cooperation, such that the most critical risk they face is that of losing credibility. Together, these concepts are able to address some of the thornier issues in translator ethics and provide a frame for ongoing discussion and research.

Beyond the libretto

Nowadays both intra- and interlingual surtitles are an inherent element of almost all opera produc­tions and, partly thanks to this technology, opera is now going through a renaissance. The trend of staging operas in a modernised fashion is especially popular these days, but it represents a particu­lar challenge for surtitlers. It is argued in this article that while surtitles accompanying traditional opera productions are usually intrasemiotic, as their source text is just the libretto, modernised productions often have intersemiotic surtitles. The article analyses fragments of surtitles prepared for four different operas staged in the Metropolitan Opera House, Bayerische Staatsoper and Royal Opera House. The result show that while traditionally surtitles provide the viewers with the mean­ing of the libretto, the role of intersemiotic surtitles is much more extended, as they provide the audience with more comprehensive information about the whole opera production.

The translation field in Serbia 1960-1990

The paper presents a chronological overview of diverse translation related activity in Serbia be­tween 1960 and 1990 that led to a successful interplay of four types of perspectives on translation enquiry: Policy, Public, Scientific and Critical (Koskinen 2010). It is based on the data available in periodicals, conference proceedings and other publications issued by two major translator associa­tions and book-length publications on translation theory in Serbia during this period. The analysis presents the events, topics, participants and publications on translation as well as the role of state ideology in the promotion of translation activities. Finally, it is argued that the continuous dialogue between practitioners and scholars on numerous pragmatic questions (translator training, develop­ment of terminologies, the status of the profession and others), as well as on theoretical ones (on the nature of translation theory) led to the emergence of theoretical discourse on translation in Serbia.

Translation of forms of address from Portuguese to Turkish through English: The case of José Saramago’s A Jangada de Pedra

The study of forms of address in translation is a type of register analysis that provides an interesting insight into the way specific linguistic patterns are transferred from one language to another. This article explores how the forms of address are rendered in the Turkish translation of A Jangada de Pedra (1986) by the Portuguese author José Saramago. Paratextual and textual analyses demon­strate that this work has been translated into Turkish through the English translation of the book, and that the English translation has influenced the choices of the Turkish translator. The findings of the study seem to support the hypothesis that using a mediating language/text that lacks similar forms of address as the ultimate source and the target languages/texts can cause shifts in tenor, which results in a different reading of interpersonal relationships between fictional characters in the target text.

Irena Kovačič (1951–2021)

It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our colleague, Professor Irena Kovačič, the first head of the Department of Translation Studies at the University of Ljubljana.

Visual explicitation in intersemiotic translation

In Translation Studies, explicitation generally refers to an interlingual process where something that is implicit in the source text is made explicit in the target text. This article analyses the concept in an intersemiotic context, focusing on word-to-image translation, with the aim of determining whether word-to-image translation includes meaning construction that could be described as explicitation. The empirical data of the article is a comic contract, a verbal-only document that has been intersemiotically translated into a visual form, i.e. a comic. The analysis concluded that while some of the characteristics described for interlingual explicitation operate with verbal language-specific concepts and cannot be applied to word-to-image translation, other characteristics of explicitation – such as the specification of meaning in translation – seem well-suited for this type of intersemiotic analysis. The analysis also emphasized that distinguishing types of explicitation in word-to-image translation is complicated by the inherent differences of words and images as meaning making resources.

The impact of assumed translation and the quest for a lost original

The Carta de Jamaica (1815) is considered one of the most important testimonies of the South American liberator Simón Bolívar. When the manuscript vanished, historians were left with an English translation and assumed back-translations into Spanish, which heavily impacted the (Spanish) publication history for almost two centuries. This study of the versions of the Carta de Jamaica and the discourse surrounding the search for the original is carried out by applying Jan Assman’s text production process model. Assman’s model helps identify and understand the motives guiding translation endeavors and the different functions of these versions, which makes it a valuable tool for translation-historical research on key political, cultural, or religious texts. This paper also shows how paradoxical the usage and conception of translation is: it is conceived as a problem, used as a tool of analysis, and finally becomes the solution because through translation the version “closest” to the lost original is created.