July
2006
Special issue of journal:
Enrico Monti, from the University of Bologna, has kindly informed us of the publication of a special issue of RiLUnE, a journal of European Union Literatures (in the plural) - RiLUnE - Revue des Littératures de l’Union Européenne / Review of Literatures of the European Union ISSN 1827-7047 - edited by him and his colleague Fabio Reagttin titled "Traduzione Tradizione? Paths in the European Literary Polysystem". As can be understood from the title, it is devoted to Translation as seem from the Polysystem viewpoint. Full-text articles are available online at the bilingual website od RiLUnR at http://www.rilune.org/ENGLISH/mono4/translation01.htm (French version available at: http://www.rilune.org/mono4/traduction.htm).
The editors tried to gather contributions (coming from scholars from10 different countries - European and non-European) which offered a multilingual and multifaceted view of the European literary scene, insisting on the role that translation has had in shaping a common cultural conscience.
The table of contents of this special issue looks as follows :
Section
I - Inclusion
- Özlem Berk (Mugla Üniversitesi, Türkiye)
Translating the “West”: The Position of Translated
Western Literature within the Turkish Literary
Polysystem
- Marie Vrinat-Nikolov,
Krassimira Tchilingirova
(INALCO, Paris, France)
Création et diversification
du canon littéraire bulgare (XIXe – XXe siècles): entre tradition nationale et
innovation par la traduction
Title in English: Creation and Diversification of the Bulgarian Literary
Canon (19-20th century): Between
National Tradition and Innovation by Translation
- Cristina Gómez
Castro (Universidad de Léon, España)
¿Traduzione
Tradizione? El polisistema literario español durante la dictadura franquista: la censura
Title in English: Traduzione Tradizione?
The Spanish Literary Polysystem Under
Franco’s Dictatorship: The Censorship Mechanism
- Ondrej Vimr (Univerzita Karlova, Praha, Ceská Republika)
When the Iron
Curtain Falls: Scandinavian-Czech
Translation 1890-1950
Section II - Dissemination
- Carol
O’Sullivan (University of Portsmouth, UK)
Around the Continent in 99 Exercises: Tracking the Movements of the Exercices de style
- Gilles Quentel (Uniwersytet Gdanski, Polska)
The Translations of
H.C. Andersen’s Fairy Tales on the
European Literary Scene
- Adelino Braz (Université de Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne,
France)
L’intraduisible en question: l’étude de la saudade
Title in English: The Question of the Untranslatable: A Study About the saudade
Section III -
Contamination
- Massimiliano Morini (Università degli Studi di Udine, Italia)
Norms, Difference, and the Translator: Or, How to Reproduce Double Difference
- Françoise Wuilmart (ISTI,
Bruxelles, Belgique)
La traduction littéraire: source d’enrichissement de la langue
d’accueil
Title in English: Literary Translation: source of enrichment
of the target language
- Tal Goldfajn (University of Tel-Aviv, Israel)
Non-Homeland: When Translation Is Not a Footnote
* * *
Monograph:
Snell-Hornby, Mary. 2006. The Turns of Translation Studies. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
* A particulary rich and interesting outlook on developments in
TS over the past 20 years. A micro-review is offered here so that visitors do
not miss its existence, but I hope full reviews will soon be published in TS
journals.
This
book reflects a LAP outlook, as opposed to an ESP outlook: the author discusses
mostly the way TS scholars have been thinking about translation, as
opposed to what they have learned about translation through investigation,
though there are a few references to findings, mostly in chapter 4 on “The
turns of the 1990s. (Just to avoid misunderstandings, this reviewer is not
criticizing this approach, just drawing the readers’ attention to it.)
The
author reviews, explains and discusses schools of thought, developments and
issues in TS since it started emerging as a discipline. She acknowledges in her
preface that her viewpoint is a European one. Fair enough, but it might have
been a good idea to indicate this in the title of the book, so as not to
suggest she believes that TS is European. Actually, not only is the book
Europe-centred; there is also strong bias in favor of
German and Austrian writings. Snell-Hornby rightly
says that texts in German have not been treated adequately in the international
English-speaking community of TS scholars and sets out to correct this. All the
information and discussion about German and Austrian contributions to TS are
welcome, but the bias is heavy throughout the book and almost gives the
impression that most of the significant work in TS comes from the
German-speaking community, while so much has been and is being done in Spain,
in Scandinavian countries and in Italy, just to mention three particularly
productive geographical areas. Beyond Europe, it is a pity not to acknowledge
the pioneering work done on all forms of public service interpreting in
Australia and Canada, contributions on court interpreting from the US, and more
recent contributions from South Africa. This unbalanced view of TS is the one
serious criticism I have of the book.
As
pointed out in the beginning of this micro-review, content-wise, the book is
very rich, in particular with respect to German texts and their authors. Many
extracts are provided in German, with an English translation, and illustrate
convincingly many of the points made by the author. There are good explanations
of the “Cultural Turn” in the 1980s, interesting discussions of German
functionalism, of gender-based TS, of the effects of English having become the
lingua franca of TS. Snell-Hornby also discusses
relatively recent developments having to do with technology. The discussion on
interpreting is somewhat superficial and its interaction with written
translation could have been analyzed more at length (this reviewer’s bias may
be at work here), but at least interpreting is acknowledged as part of TS. In
her last chapter, the author offers some thoughts on perspectives. Inter alia, she mentions the issue of TS’s
metalanguage as one which deserves attention (Yves
Gambier and Luc van Doorslaer are preparing a special
issue of Target on this precise topic) and stresses the importance of being
aware of the history of TS.
An informative, stimulating book. (DG)
* * *
Collective volume:
Salevsky, Heidemarie (ed). 2005. Kultur, Interpretation, Translation. Ausgewählte Beiträge aus 15 Jahren Forschungsseminar. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien : Peter Lang.
A collection of papers given over 15 years of research seminars
organized by the editor at her universities.
Contents:
- Heidemarie Salevsky: 15 Jahre Forschungsseminar - Reminiszenzen. 11-23.
- Hans J. Vermeer: Die Aufhebung der Translation. 27-52.
- Rosemary Arrojo: Tradition and the Resistance to Translation. 53-60.
- Wolfram Wilss: Verhaltenswissenschaftliche Aspekte des Übersetzungsprozesses. 63-73.
- Doreen Stärke-Meyerring: Zur Rolle der rhetorischen Theorie in der Übersetzung am Beispiel der Übertragung von «Ethos» in einem multilingualen Internetportal. 75-92.
- Ingrid Kurz: Was (tatsächlich) in den Köpfen von Dolmetschern vorgeht. Neurophysiologische Untersuchungen zum Simultandolmetschen. 95-104.
- Ivana
Cenková: Sinhronnyj
perevod v institutah
Evropejskog
- Jens Heßmann: Harry Potter in Gebärdensprache: Aspekte des Dolmetschens zwischen Hörenden und Gehörlosen. 113-128.
- Gerhard Begrich: Der blonde David. Ein Beitrag zur Interpretation, Kultur und Übersetzung der (hebräischen) Bibel. 131-142.
- Klaus Berger/Christiane Nord: Das Neue Testament - neu übersetzt. Funktionsgerechtheit und Loyalität bei der Übersetzung neutestamentlicher und frühchristlicher Texte. 143-153.
- David Clark: A Consultant's Kaleidoscope on Bible Translation. 155-169.
- Sergei Ovsiannikov: Theory of Bible Translation. Can it be Orthodox? 171-184.
- Alla Bragina: Dobro i zlo.strah i trusost'. Pontij Pilat i Iisus Hristos v romane M.A. Bulgakova «Master i Margarita». 187-192.
- Elisabeth Markstein: Die Mühen der Übersetzenden um Puschkins Lyrik. 193-207.
- Irene Rübberdt †: Lyrikübertragung zwischen den Stühlen (Vom geteilten und vereinten translatorischen Handeln). 209-215.
- Klaus Kaindl: Übersetzungsanalyse mit System: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Opernübersetzung. 219-232.
- Christine Engel: «Djadja Vanja» in der Verfilmung von Andrej Michalkov-Koncalovskij. 233-250.
- Mary Carroll: Subtitling.Translation to an Interplay of Rhythms in a Polysemiotic Setting. 251-258.
- Klaus Schubert: Forschungsaufgaben einer einheitlichen Fachkommunikationswissenschaft. 261-274.
- Radegundis Stolze: Transparentes Übersetzen im Bereich des Rechts. 275-290.
- Ina Müller: Übertragung von Abstracts.Objekt der Translationswissenschaft? 291-307.
- Detlev Blanke: Zamenhof als Übersetzer. 311-328.
- Reiner Arntz: Sprachplanung und Plansprachen.auch ein Thema für die Übersetzerausbildung. 329-341.
- Wera Blanke: Terminologiearbeit und die Plansprache Esperanto.Einige Aspekte und Ergebnisse. 343-360.
- Gisela Siebourg: Die Anforderungen an den Konferenzdolmetscher im Auswärtigen Amt heute. 363-371.
- Antonio Reda: Anforderungen des Auswärtigen Amts an die Übersetzer- und Dolmetscherausbildung. 373-381.
* * *
Papers in journals:
HE, Xianbin. (
* The author discusses multilingualism in EU organizations, more specifically
the fact that in such organizations, English and French are most often used. He
seems to believe that this is due to political clout and that language choice
is associated with symbolic power. Interesting ideas, but perhaps not analyzed
in sufficient depth to reach conclusions. What are the real effects of the
restricted number of languages on exchanges in European institutions in view of
the possible alternatives, the sociolect of European
institutions and the actors’ bilingualism/multilingualism?
Jung, Hye-Song (
* An abstract discussion of Antoine Berman’s views on translation, the
summary of a doctoral dissertation defended at ESIT, France..
Kelly, Dorothy, Marie-Louise Nobs, Dolores Sanchez &
*The authors discuss the much debated issue of directionality in
translation against the background of the prevailing Western theory that
translators should only work into their A language. The authors point out that in the marketplace, there is considerable demand for
work into B and believe that translator training should attend to that
need as well.
Kim, Haeyoung (The
* 14 Undegraduate students taking a translation
course filled out a SILL questionnaire, a tool designed to investigate the use
of learning strategies in foreign language learners, to see whether it could be
useful to investigate translation strategies as a predictor of translation
quality in students’ work. Results suggest that students have not reacher what the author calls “metacognitive
level”, in which they can leap beyond the “word level struggle” .
Kurz, Ingrid & Mikulasek, Brigitta. 2004. Television as a Source of Information for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired. Captions and Sign Language on Austrian TV. Meta 49:1. 81-88.
Minacori-Vibert, Patricia (Université de Franche-Comté, France). 2006. L’évaluation en traduction pédagogique, technique et scientifique : première partie. Forum 4:1. 139-169.
* The author analyzed errors in 545 undergradute students’ English-inot-French
translations and found that such errors could be categorized into comprehension
errors, production errors, information acquisition errors and proofreading
errors.
Nord, Christiane. 2006. Loyalty and fidelity in specialized translation. Confluencias 4. 29-41.
* A clearly written presentation of functionalism, very useful for scholars not familiar with this movement,
who do not understand German but want to read a first-hand account by one of its prominent representatives available on the internet. Two features stand out in Nord’s text:
- Functionalism
is presented as a
prescriptive position, not a descriptive construct or
an explanatory theory.
- Nord seems to consider functionalism as a self-sufficient
entity, and does not refer to other theories or texts that explore or discuss further points that she considers
relevant. For instance, on page
Park, Hae-Kyong and Cho,
JunMo (Handong Global University, Korea).
* Undegraduate students majoring in English at Hangdong Global University were asked to fill out 4 multiple-choice questionnaires
about their purposes,
expectations and needs when choosing to study translation and interpretation courses. In addition, they
were asked to say which of 7 simple
English sentences were ungrammatical. Results indicate that most
students chose interpretation/translation
for parallel acquisition of translation/interpreting competence and for enhancement of language skills at the same
time. They also suggest that errors
in English syntact may be associated
with the absence of corresponding syntactic
structures in Korean.
Plassard, Freddie
(Université Paris III, France). 2006. La lecture en traduction : bilan
d’une recherche. Forum 4:1. 205-220.
* The author discusses various steps in what seems to be
her own reading
of a German text to be translated.
Soh Tatcha,
Charles (University of Yaoundé, Cameroon).
2006. Le texte de doublage cinématographique : une hétérogénéité à
interroger. Forum 4:1. 255-279.
* In this essay, the author
stresses the composite, heterogeneous, multimodal nature of film dubbing.