Babel - Volume 68, Issue 2, 2022

Abstract

A manuscript preserved in the Royal Academy of History of Madrid shows that Pedro Montengón (1745–1824) translated the Sophoclean dramas Oedipus Rex, Electra and Philoctetes. This author wrote an interesting prologue with reflections on the Greek tragedy. In this paper, we will try to situate this production in its cultural context, analyze these translations, examine his thoughts and disquisitions on Greek tragedy and search for the reasons that prompted him to make these translations, silenced until the end of the twentieth century.

Abstract

The article deals with the notions of translation agency and habitus, while applying Mixed Methods and using interviewing as the primary source of information. The target text examined is the Italian translation of the book by Ευγενία Φακίνου (Evghenía Fakínou), Αστραδενή (Astradení), translated as Stregata dalle stelle by Claretta Candotti (publishers Κέδρος [Kédros] in Greece and Crocetti Editore in Italy). In applying Mixed Methods, my analysis follows Lieven D’hulst’s Translation History model, based on some of his eight Latin loci (quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxillis, cur, quomodo, quando, cui bono), with the aim of examining translation agency. In particular, I try to highlight the interaction between the author, the translator, the publishers, and the institutions promoting translation. Moreover, exploring sociological approaches to translation, I attempt to evince how Pierre Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and capital may have played a role in the translational choices of these agents. Most of the data collected derives from a tailor-made questionnaire (Annex I). The answers to the questionnaire, as well as the interview material, are exemplified through targeted, yet necessarily limited, textual analysis. The conclusion highlights the surprising lack of synergies between the translation agents in this particular Greek-Italian context: the deficient communication between author and translator, lack of institutionalized cooperation between Greek and Italian Publishers, and underdeveloped institutional framework for bilateral, state-sponsorship of Greek-Italian literary translations, although the Italian publisher obtained European funding.

Abstract

The point of departure is the hypothesis of the fundamental difference in viewing translation by the translator and by the target language reader: the former focuses on the original and a search for equivalents, whereas the latter has no contact either with the original or the process of translation. It is interesting that without contact with the original, the recipient of translation nevertheless has an illusion of accessing that original. Looking at translation as a linguistically secondary text largely determines the translator’s activity – but not the reception of the final product by the reader. In conclusion, one can hypothesize that translation is doubly conditioned: by the original text and by its future communicative context. In each, a textual point of reference can be determined: the original text and parallel texts, respectively. The translation’s secondariness is thus two-dimensional. It follows that translation, viewed above all as a linguistically secondary text (being based on an original), nevertheless functions independently of this feature. The tension between these two properties of translation determines its status as a message of a peculiar type. It is mainly this assumption that reveals the inadequacy of grounding the efficiency of translations in the notion of equivalence.

Abstract

The development of technology, in particular, innovations in natural language processing and means to explore big data, has influenced different aspects in the training of translators and interpreters. This paper investigates how learner corpora and their research contribute to the teaching and learning of translation and interpreting. It starts with a review of the evolvement of learner corpora in translator and interpreter training. Drawing on data from the Chinese/English Translation and Interpreting Learner Corpus (CETILC), a learner corpus developed for the study of lexical cohesion, the paper introduces three case studies to illustrate the possibilities of exploring learner data through human annotation, machine-facilitated human annotation, and finally human-supervised/edited machine annotation. The findings of the case studies suggest the complexity of learner language and its intricate relationships with various factors concerning the learner, text, and task. The paper ends with a discussion of the great potentials of purposely made learner corpora such as the CETILC in translator and interpreter training, as well as the application of learner corpora in (semi-) automatic processing of learner texts.

Abstract

This study represents a contrastive analysis of Michael Ende’s poem “Der Lindwurm und der Schmetterling oder Der seltsame Tausch” and its Serbian translation by Spomenka Krajčević titled “Zmaj i Leptir ili Neobična zamena” based on the cognitive-linguistic theory of conceptual metonymy. The purpose of the analysis is to determine in what way the mechanisms of conceptual metonymy may be utilized for the purposes of poetry translation. For this reason, those passages of the translated poem will be analyzed which deviate from the original in such a way that the semantic material of the deviating passages exhibits the characteristics of metonymy, namely a specific conceptual configuration between an Idealized Cognitive Model (Frame) and its parts. The analysis revealed 61 metonymic relationships between the target- and the source text, of which 46 in total (75.4%) reveal a contiguous relationship between two parts of an ICM, indicating that this metonymic principle of configuration may present a considerably more flexible translation strategy for poetry translation than the substitution of an entire ICM with one of its parts or vice versa.

Abstract

This article examines issues of translation in Dung Kai-cheung’s 董啟章 novel Dituji: Yige xiangxiang de chengshi de kaoguxue 地圖集：一個想像的城市的考古學 (Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City). In the first instance, it provides structural analyses of the constraints shaping the translation of the writer’s work from Chinese to English. It moves on to comment on the imbrication of Hong Kong’s history of translation in the puns and other word games, as well as in the narrative thread. Lastly, it compares different partial English translations of significant passages to (re-)map the linguistic and cultural transfer of this major work of contemporary Hong Kong literature.

This article reviews Literary Translation in Periodicals: Methodological challenges for a transnational approach

This article reviews The Palgrave Handbook of Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility