Babel - Volume 59, Issue 4, 2013

In this article, we will reflect on the problems dealing with the translation of the lexis in contemporary literary texts. We will also study how lexis is the immediate reflection of the polyphony that prevails in the current narrative. In order to do this, first of all we will analyse the characteristics of the novels currently being published in Italy. Once we have established that lexical hybridization is one of the main ways of writing in many contemporary literatures (other than Italian), we shall go on to deal with the problems that arise during the translation of non-standard lexis.

Assuming that lexis is something that cannot be isolated from the rest of the text, and that other aspects, such as morphosyntax, must be always taken into account, we will study some examples from the translation into Spanish (by Xavier González Rovira) of Melania G. Mazzucco’s novel Un giorno perfetto, where the variety of the protagonists’ voices is clearly apparent. In order to maintain this polyphony, it will be necessary (apart from translating the mere meaning of a word or expression) to find equivalents for a specific register, as well as a style and some particular connotations that reflect the different ways of speaking found in Mazzucco’s work.

This article presents a new tool which has been developed in order to make reading speed calculations, and whose results are expressed by means of the two parameters most used in the field: CPS (characters per second) and WPM (words per minute). Topics such as the suitability of each one of the parameters versus the other, the potential correlation which may exist among them, as well as their behavior across different languages are open to discussion in the very limited available bibliography on the subject.

It seems that part of this confusion has spread over to commercial subtitling programs, most of which present values for either one or both parameters to the final user. It has been confirmed that different subtitling software programs calculate different reading speed values (both in CPS and WPM) for the same set of subtitles. Due to this, a very simple software application which calculates values for CPS and WPM is presented. It has been willingly designed to make no assumptions, but simply to count characters and to make very straightforward time algebra with the subtitle in and out times. The new tool allows for empirical and quantitative research of large series of subtitles at a time, and it may also play an important role in the classroom environment.

This article provides evidence for the applicability of free translation to legal texts, based on an examination of actual cases of Japanese-to-English translation of agreements and contracts in which problems arise from literal translation. The data analysis shows that pitfalls associated with literal translation are attributable to not only the difficulty of finding terminological equivalents that inevitably arises from the differences in the Japanese and American legal and cultural systems, but also to the importance of preserving the spirit of mutual trust and cooperation that is found in Japanese business transactions. It is also postulated that general linguistic and interpretive problems inherent in Japanese-to-English translation of nontechnical texts, including redundancy, ambiguity, propensity for nonspecific statements, and the lack of linguistic clues (e.g., indicators of number), have fundamental, but not well understood, implications for legal translation. The conclusions indicate the need for an integrated approach to legal translation practice that uses both literal and free translations, taking into full account the linguistic, cultural, and legal factors at work in the translation process.

The Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales are among the most widely read children’s stories in China. This paper first briefly outlines the journey of these German stories in the Chinese land from three stages represented respectively by early attempts starting with 1902, the first complete version by Wei Yixin published in 1934 and the most authoritative complete version by Yang Wuneng published in 1993. Focus is specially laid on Yang’s version and some specific characteristics of his translations are discussed. This is followed by a brief discussion on the historic influences of Grimms’ tales upon the Chinese Folklore Movement and the early Chinese writers for children. The paper finally shows the current reception of Grimms’ tales in China from such two aspects as the general public and the scholarly community.

The main objective of this article is to shed some light on the much-neglected area of translating gender between Persian and English. More specifically, it sets out to investigate the different strategies employed for translating the textual indicators of gender in the specified corpus of the study as well as the socio-cultural and ideological factors influencing them qualitatively. This objective is achieved through following a two-level methodology at descriptive and explanatory levels throughout the article and the following results are attained: 1) five broad categories of gender-translation strategies were identified in the corpus of the study; and 2) the aforementioned strategies were judged to be influenced by socio-cultural and ideological factors of different types.