Clara Foz and Ryan Fraser
pp. 9–11
Record
Salah Basalamah
pp. 13–49
Record
Abstract
In this article, I propose two hypotheses: first, that theory and research methodology are inter-dependent, and second, that it is necessary to recognize the plurality of methodological approaches in Translation Studies, including conceptual research. To test the first hypothesis, I show how the notion of theory has evolved throughout the development of the discipline, and thereby establish that metatheoretical reflection, precisely the kind of reflection carried out in this article, cannot disregard reflection on the methodological choices available to researchers such as translation theorists. To verify the second hypothesis, I identify trends in the methodological choices that translation theorists make, and analyze possible reasons for these tendencies. The preliminary results signal the strong predominance of empirical research and, consequently, the less significant and less recognized place of conceptual research, which has been weakened by a perception that this kind of research “lacks scientificity.” Yet how can we lay claim to interdisciplinarity when methodological pluralism is deficient? In response to this question, I call for a broader view of the very foundations of the discipline, and a movement towards an integrated philosophy of translation.
Ryan Fraser
pp. 51–82
Record
Abstract
In 1967, American dialect actor Luis d’Antin van Rooten published his now-classic Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames, a non-organic arrangement of French-language words and phrases designed to approximate the speech sounds of Mother Goose Rhymes. Though much read and imitated, these homophonic translations have largely evaded theoretical focus. Perhaps this is because their unique structuring allows them to evade anchorage in any specific contextual frame, and to send up the researcher’s own efforts toward contextualization, which has been prescribed as the methodological “first step” in Translation Studies since the Cultural Turn. Presented here, first of all, is a search for the potential frames of the Mots d’Heures–biographical, inter-textual, cinematic. These homophonic translations, I will then contend with reference to Jean-Jacques Lecercle (1990), exist to defy these frames by collapsing together, at the phono-articulate level, the target text with its most obvious context: the English-language source. Finally, I would contend, this collapse exemplifies the phenomena of “weaning,” “trans-contextual drift,” and “remainder” argued by Derrida (1988) as the enduring property of the signifying structure. The Mots d’Heures serve, then, as a playful reminder, in an intellectual climate where context reigns, of the signifying form’s structural ascendancy over the frame, of its “iterability.”
July De Wilde
pp. 83–107
Record
Abstract
In this article, while I welcome the call for a more interdisciplinary character, I also endorse the idea that the methods of neighbouring disciplines do not necessarily need to be included into one comprehensive research model for TS. The advantages of interdisciplinary research are illustrated with research into the translation of literary irony. In the first part of the article, I present an analytical instrument for comparative research between original and translated ironic excerpts. I will demonstrate that by including insights from, mainly, pragmatic and cognitive approaches to irony, I have been able to fine-tune the three-part analytical instrument called “the ironic effect.” Its advantages and heuristic scope are illustrated with excerpts from La tía Julia y el escribidor (Mario Vargas Llosa). In the second part of the article, I discuss the analyses of two other novels, Tres tristes tigres (Guillermo Cabrera Infante) and La invención de Morel (Adolfo Bioy Casares) and show that, by adopting very different research hypotheses and multiplying the questions asked, the observed data were better understood. I conclude that there is margin for an inclusive, open and flexible TS methodology, provided that both theory and methodology are understood as means of understanding. Stripped of its ontological status, theory, then, is nothing but a functional notion.
Atsuko Hayakawa
pp. 109–131
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Abstract
The dynamic power shift of the world picture from a dominant hegemonic power structure to a global consciousness of hybridity accelerated by postcolonialism in the late 20th century has opened up a way to re-read history from a new perspective. The major point in the process is the recognition of both the cultural and political others which had long been made invisible and silent by the politics of power. It is in this light that translation must be addressed by scholarly discourse.This paper focuses on war poems by Sadako Kurihara both in the time of and after the censorship that occurred during the occupation. Through the lens of translation and its modalities, I would propose here, history can be re-addressed. How the narrative of translation creates an arena where an individual voice is made to be heard in the language of others is closely related with the translator’s stance in the political context. The task of the translator today is much more important than ever, not only culturally but also ethically.
Manal Ahmed El Badaoui
pp. 133–158
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Abstract
The article examines the translation of cultural elements, as well as the changes that occur from language to language, from one culture to another. We will study strategies employed by authors for translating cultural elements, in order to identify a preferred strategy. To determine the context and circumstances necessary to choose one strategy over another we will examine La nuit sacrée, a novel by Tahar Ben Jelloun, published in 1987, and two Arabic translations undertaken and published in Egypt in 1988 and 1993.
Freddie Plassard
pp. 159–179
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Abstract
The article aims at presenting the specific contribution of mailing lists to methodology, as compared with existing methods accounting for the description of the translation process. It describes the material made available with the lists, in its categorization and in an analysis of their methodological and sociological scopes.
Maribel Tercedor, Clara Inés López-Rodríguez and Pamela Faber
pp. 181–214
Record
Abstract
Dictionaries ideally should address the needs of particular types of users. Their micro and macrostructural design should be oriented towards what user groups need to know about words and the uses that will be made of such knowledge. One specific use for dictionaries is the activity of translation. From the perspective of professional translators, dictionaries should allow for creativity and dynamicity in text production, providing solutions for changing communication needs. Dictionary-making for such a purpose can and should benefit from insights into words and meanings from other fields. Interdisciplinarity in Lexicography is just one example of how other fields interact in Translation Studies. In this paper we analyse how working in an interdisciplinary way is crucial to developing useful lexicographic and terminographic tools for translators and how methodologies, such as corpus-based work and experimental methods should be combined to offer converging evidence of different aspects of use and processing. We illustrate such work methods with examples from real lexicographic projects.
Simon Kim
pp. 215–242
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Abstract
Written at the end of the 19th century by Pushkin, Eugene Onegin is perceived as one of the masterpieces of Russian literature. Yet in other countries, this fame is often overshadowed by Tchaikovsky’s eponymous opera. Nevertheless, the great number of translations of this work do not correspond with its relative obscurity outside Russia. Pushkin named Eugene Onegin a “novel in verse.” This hybrid work blurs literary preconceptions of the distinction between prose and poetry, novel and poem, and makes use of a great variety of styles and genres. His approach fits with Bakhtin’s definition of a multilingual text, which is characterized by polyglossia and is shaped by a unique structure so later known as the “Onegin stanza.” For all these reasons, Eugene Onegin is a challenge for translators, be they Russian speakers or not (Hofstadter, Giudici).Though Western language poetry uses a wide variety of meter and rhyme, translators are inclined to transpose the Russian into Western verse, Western translators first must define the nature of the text to translate, as it does not belong to traditional genres.On the other hand, for Asian languages, such as Korean or Japanese, which have entirely different linguistic mechanisms as well as literary and poetic traditions, the challenge first seems far more complex, since the translator has to either invent or denounce a form as significant as the content of the text. However, as the text problematizes this very relationship, the distinction between form and content becomes irrelevant.Observing the various translating approaches—both Western and Asian—sheds light on this particular feature of Eugene Onegin and its translation. While the familiarity of Western languages with meter, verse, and rhyme seems to leave the translator with the problem of genre (novel/poem, poetic prose/prosaic poetry), the otherness or strangeness of Asian languages reveals that the translator’s task is, and has always been—even for Western translators—not merely to (attempt to) reproduce a versified form, but to create a new form, a new text that does “what the text does.” (Meschonnic).
Francesca Ervas
pp. 243–265
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Abstract
This article discusses how, in addition to providing a definition for translation, the concept of equivalence may explain why we can say that sentence S in language L is a translation of sentence S1 in language L1. It analyzes two main kinds of equivalence that are used in analytical philosophy to define translation: semantic equivalence and functional equivalence. This analysis shows that drawing a distinction between semantic and functional equivalence is a way to understand the distinction between different levels or aspects of meaning. Both semantic equivalence, introduced by Gottlob Frege, and functional equivalence, proposed by Wilfrid Sellars, were developed in Donald Davidson’s theory of meaning. After discussing the limits of Davidson’s definitions of equivalence, this article will argue that functional equivalence is a reason for comparing Davidson’s philosophy to positions such as those expressed by Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics.
