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- Volume 29, Issue, 2017
Target. International Journal of Translation Studies - Volume 29, Issue 2, 2017
Volume 29, Issue 2, 2017
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“He stole our translation”
Author(s): Christina Delistathipp.: 201–221 (21)More LessDespite the centrality of translations in introducing Marxist ideas, we know little about the agendas that shaped them. This paper investigates how reviews of translated Marxist theoretical texts, issued between 1927 and 1934 by the Communist Party of Greece, were utilised in a struggle to appropriate Marxist discourse from its rivals. Drawing on Foucault’s procedures of discourse control, and calling attention to power struggles among forces with counterhegemonic ideas, the paper analyses the party’s rules and conditions under which it was legitimate for a translator to carry out a translation and for the translation to enter political discourse. It will be argued that political tensions triggered changes in reviewing practices and efforts to renew translation quality criteria. These tensions shaped contemporary debates on the correct interpretation of Marxism and helped advance the party’s position (a) by calling on readers to disregard earlier translations issued by political rivals; (b) by constructing its own translations as truth-objects; and by fashioning itself as the gatekeeper of Marxism. Studying translation reviews allows us to extend our understanding of the complexities of discourse formation, to trace the history of discourses, to document how knowledge can be a resource in power struggles, and to understand how power struggles can recast discursive practices.
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Foucault in English
Author(s): Karen Bennettpp.: 222–243 (22)More LessIt is something of a cliché to affirm that translations into English are almost always domestications, privileging fluency and naturalness over fidelity to the source text. However, back in the 1970s, many of Michel Foucault’s major texts, which were introduced to the English-speaking public for the first time through Alan Sheridan Smith’s translations for Tavistock Publications, were not domesticated at all. Despite the fact that the originals are grounded in a non-empiricist theory of knowledge and use terms drawn from a universe of discourse that would have been completely alien in the English-speaking world, these translations closely follow the patterns of the French, with few or no concessions to the target reader’s knowledge and expectations. This paper analyses passages from Sheridan Smith’s English translations of Les Mots et les choses and L’Archéologie du savoir in order to discuss the long-term effects of this translation strategy. It then goes on to compare and assess two very different translations of Foucault’s lecture L’ Ordre du discours ( 1970 ), an early one by Rupert Swyer (1971) , which brings the text to the English reader, and a later one by Ian McLeod (1981) , which obliges the reader to go to the text. The paper concludes by reiterating the need for Anglophone academic culture to open up to foreign perspectives, and suggests, following Goethe (Book of West and East, 1819 ) that new epistemes are best introduced gradually in order to avoid alienating or confusing a public that might not be ready for them.
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Translation and hegemonic knowledge under advanced capitalism
Author(s): Stefan Baumgartenpp.: 244–263 (20)More LessTranslation occurs in a context of power asymmetries. Using two English translations of Adorno’s seminal Ästhetische Theorie as an example, this paper elaborates an eclectic phenomenology of power structured alongside three symbolic images: the street market, the assembly line, and a technological gadget. By aligning some key concepts of critical theory with the evolutionary stages of capitalism, it will be argued that recontextualisations of Adornian thought in English may reflect the well-known antagonism between Adorno’s philosophical thought and the dominant scientistic mindset of mid-20th century American social science. Ultimately, this paper contemplates the extent to which Adorno’s Anglophone mirror image has been refracted through a positivist and neoliberal order of discourse that is at odds with the ideological, or utopian, convictions of German critical theory.
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Technology, translation and society
Author(s): Maeve Olohanpp.: 264–283 (20)More LessTranslation studies and social theories of translation tend not to deal adequately with questions regarding the role of technology in translation and have neglected the ways in which technologies, as non-human entities, embody and materialize hegemonic and power relations. This paper seeks to address this shortcoming by looking to science and technology studies (STS) for conceptual frameworks to help us to understand and articulate (a) how popular, deterministic perceptions of translation technology are perpetuated through the discourses of hegemonic actors, (b) how decisions regarding design and use of translation technologies may be studied with reference to their construction and interpretation by relevant social groups, and (c) how a critical theory of technology and an analytical focus on practices can help to focus our attention on the exercise of hegemonic control in the translation sector.
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Humanum ex machina
Author(s): Mark O’Thomaspp.: 284–300 (17)More LessTranslation sits at the epicentre of the biotech era’s exponential growth. The terms of reference of this discipline are increasingly unstable becoming as humans interface with machines, become melded with them, and ultimately become a networked entity alongside other networked entities. In this brave new world, the posthuman offers a critical perspective that allows us to liberate our thinking in new ways and points towards the possibility of a translation theory that actively engages with other disciplines as a response to disciplinary hegemony. This article looks at how technology has changed and is changing translation. It then explores the implications of transhumanism and the possibilities for a posthuman translation theory. Ultimately, the survival of translation studies will be contingent on the survival of translation itself and its ability to question its own subjective, posthuman self.
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Fansubbing in China
Author(s): Dingkun Wang and Xiaochun Zhangpp.: 301–318 (18)More LessThis paper seeks to explore the socio-political tensions between freedom and constraints in the Chinese fansubbing networks. It approaches the development of fansubbing in China as a process of technology democratisation with the potential to liberate ordinary citizens from authoritarian and commercial imperatives, enabling them to contest official state domination. The paper draws on the strategies adopted by fansubbing groups to organise their working practices and interactive social activities with a view to engaging target audiences. Both facets complement each other and bring to the fore the ‘gamified’ system of fansubbing networks. Gamification enables ordinary citizens to translate, distribute and consume foreign audiovisual products in a strategic move that pits collective activism against government dominance.
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Subaltern mediators in the digital landscape
Author(s): Teresa Iribarrenpp.: 319–338 (20)More LessThis article explores translational literary Web 2.0 practices and user-generated cultural creations on the Internet, focusing on video poetry that re-creates canonical poets’ bodies of work. It will be argued that the use of for-profit platforms like YouTube and Vimeo by indie creators and translators of video poetry favours the emergence of new translational attitudes, practices and objects that have positive but also contentious effects. One the one hand, these online mediators explore new poetic expressions and tend to make the most of the potential for dissemination of poetic heritage, providing visibility to non-hegemonic literatures. On the other hand, however, these translational digitally-born practices and creations by voluntary and subaltern mediators might reinforce the hegemonic position of large American Internet corporations at the risk of commodifying cultural capital, consolidating English as a lingua franca and perhaps, in the long run, even fostering a potentially monocultural and internationally homogeneous aesthetics.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 36 (2024)
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Volume 35 (2023)
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Volume 34 (2022)
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Volume 33 (2021)
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Volume 32 (2020)
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Volume 31 (2019)
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Volume 30 (2018)
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Volume 29 (2017)
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Volume 28 (2016)
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Volume 27 (2015)
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Volume 26 (2014)
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Volume 25 (2013)
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Volume 24 (2012)
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Volume 23 (2011)
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Volume 22 (2010)
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Volume 21 (2009)
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Volume 20 (2008)
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Volume 19 (2007)
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Volume 18 (2006)
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Volume 17 (2005)
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Volume 16 (2004)
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Volume 15 (2003)
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Volume 14 (2002)
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Volume 13 (2001)
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Volume 12 (2000)
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Volume 11 (1999)
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Volume 10 (1998)
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Volume 9 (1997)
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Volume 8 (1996)
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Volume 7 (1995)
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Volume 6 (1994)
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Volume 5 (1993)
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Volume 4 (1992)
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Volume 3 (1991)
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Volume 2 (1990)
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Volume 1 (1989)
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