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- Volume 11, Issue, 2016
Translation and Interpreting Studies. The Journal of the American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association - Volume 11, Issue 2, 2016
Volume 11, Issue 2, 2016
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On the noises and rhythms of translation
Author(s): M.Carmen África Vidal Claramontepp.: 131–151 (21)More LessIn the global society of the twenty-first century, language plays a fundamental role that is neither neutral nor innocent. The meaning of every word is never pure, but it is charged with many different noises and rhythms according to the culture in which they originate. As a result, the most important and also the most difficult and compromising function of translators, from an ethical viewpoint, is not translating meaning, but translating those noises and rhythms implicit in texts. That is why I believe we have to rethink the concept of translation from a new point of view. What I propose in this article is an interdisciplinary approach, derived from music and philosophy, and specifically from Michel Serres’ and Jacques Attali’s concept of noise, John Cage’s concept of silence and Henri Lefebvre’s concept of rhythmanalysis, that will allow us, as translators, to become more aware of the ideologies that filter in through the noises and rhythms of words. This article will examine examples of these ideas found in literary texts.
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Beyond non-translation and “self-translation”
Author(s): Leo Tak-hung Chanpp.: 152–176 (25)More LessFor non-Anglophone scholars, there are essentially three language options, leading to: (1) untranslated publications in languages other than English; (2) research written in English, although some kind of “internal translation” has occurred to the author concerned; and (3) research translated into English by someone who serves as a mediator between the original text and the readers of the translation. The present paper analyzes the three choice made by Chinese scholars in the past two decades. The first category of these writings is produced by those who are unable to use English, or those who strive to resist Englishization. The second involves bilingual authors who are also “self-translators.” The third is by nature collaborative, with a monolingual author being helped, in most cases, by a professional translator. Specific reference will be made in this article to the shifting importance the third category has assumed in Chinese scholarship in the last decade but the main focus will be on the challenges faced by all non-Anglophone humanities scholars in attempting to publish in English.
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“The committee in my head”
Author(s): Laura Maddux and Brenda Nicodemuspp.: 177–201 (25)More LessAnecdotally, interpreters report experiencing self-talk before, during, and after assignments; however, this inner dialogue has neither been confirmed nor described in the literature. Prior studies suggest that guided self-talk can boost performance in learning and human performance activities. It follows that self-talk may also affect interpreting performance, either positively or negatively. In this study, reports of self-talk of American Sign Language-English interpreters were examined for the following characteristics: frequency, valence, overtness, self-determination, motivation, and function. Participants (N = 445) responded to online survey questions about the experience of self-talk in their interpreting work. For frequency, more than half of the respondents reported experiencing self-talk between 1–5 times during their work. Regarding valence, 62% of respondents reported a mix of positive and negative self-talk about their performance. For overtness, 62% reported talking (or signing) aloud in isolated settings about their work experiences. Regarding self-determination, nearly half of the respondents (48%) reported self-talk as a mix of conscious and unconscious thoughts. Eighty-nine percent of the respondents reported using self-talk for motivation, but 65% reported their self-talk was actually de-motivational at times. The most frequently reported function of self-talk was to improve interpreting. The findings offer a rich description of self-talk by American Sign Language-English interpreters. We suggest that more information about self-talk during interpretation may lead to greater self-awareness of the role of this phenomenon in working practitioners, as well as offer insights for the instruction of student interpreters.
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The effect of informational load on disfluencies in interpreting
Author(s): Koen Plevoets and Bart Defrancqpp.: 202–224 (23)More LessThis article attempts to measure the cognitive or informational load in interpreting by modelling the occurrence rate of the speech disfluency uh(m). In a corpus of 107 interpreted and 240 non-interpreted texts, informational load is operationalized in terms of four measures: delivery rate, lexical density, percentage of numerals, and average sentence length. The occurrence rate of the indicated speech disfluency was modelled using a rate model. Interpreted texts are analyzed based on the interpreter’s output and compared with the input of non-interpreted texts, and measure the effect of source text features. The results demonstrate that interpreters produce significantly more uh(m)s than non-interpreters and that this difference is mainly due to the effect of lexical density on the output side. The main source predictor of uh(m)s in the target text was shown to be the delivery rate of the source text. On a more general level of significance, the second analysis also revealed an increasing effect of the numerals in the source texts and a decreasing effect of the numerals in the target texts.
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From literal to technical
Author(s): Anastasia Lakhtikovapp.: 225–247 (23)More LessOur understanding of Vladimir Nabokov’s method of translating Eugene Onegin as literal is largely based on his own claims and as such it populates anthologies of translation theory (i.e., Venuti’s The Translation Studies Reader) and classrooms. However, upon closer examination, Nabokov’s method is extremely removed both from the broad and specialized understanding of what a literal translation is. It is neither instrumental, as any literal translation would be, nor hermeneutic, as any literary translation accompanied by a voluminous commentary should be. Nabokov’s Commentary, an adjunct to his translation of Eugene Onegin, is the key to his translation method and to the translation’s strangeness. Analyzing the nature, scope, and function of the commentary from within the field of translation studies rather than that of literary criticism, this essay accounts for a number of idiosyncrasies observed by many critics of Commentary but previously unexplored and unexplained. These include its seemingly irrational feature of discussing texts unrelated to Pushkin’s own reading list; its excessive attention to Gallicisms and Romantic texts; its role in stabilizing translation; in a word, its function in Nabokov’s innovative translation methodology. This essay argues that instead of reviewing Nabokov’s Commentary within the paradigms of literary or historiographic genres, we should consider it first as a translation tool. The translation methodology then can be reevaluated in more technical terms than conventionally practiced in literary translation criticism. This revision unveils Nabokov’s translation not as literary but technical and not as literal but corpus-based, with mechanics and parallel texts minutely detailed in the commentary.
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T. S. Eliot, anti-Semitism, and Hebrew translation
Author(s): Rachel Weissbrodpp.: 248–267 (20)More LessT. S. Eliot’s early poems, as well as his letters and prose, contain expressions of anti-Semitism. This article deals with the way in which Hebrew translators and others involved in the production of translations, such as scholars contributing introductions, have treated this issue. Based on the premise that the image of a foreign author can be manipulated by the very selection of the texts to be translated, as well as by paratexts such as introductions and footnotes, it examines how Eliot has been presented to the Hebrew readership. Three approaches of presenting Eliot are described. The examination of these approaches leads to the conclusion that Eliot’s expressions of anti-Semitism did not significantly interfere with the construction of his image in the target culture despite the antagonism expressed by some translators and critics. Finally, the paper attempts to explain this indifference, which is particularly striking when compared to the ongoing debate about Eliot’s anti-Semitism in the English-speaking world.
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Translation ideologies of American literature in China
Author(s): Joe Lockard and Qin Danpp.: 268–286 (19)More LessChinese translations of U.S. literature manifest a shift from the third-world internationalism and anti-Western and anti-capitalist politics of the 1950s toward a diminished rhetorical antagonism in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Because translation introductions are instrumental in introducing Chinese readers to the social context of U.S. literature, we surveyed a broad sample of prefaces. Based on this survey, we theorize China-U.S. translation relations within a world system; examine the ideological character of post-Revolution translation introductions to American literature; and identify shifting ideological tides following the Cultural Revolution.
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A contrastive and sociolinguistic approach to the translation of vulgarity from Spanish into English and Polish in the film Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (Pedro Almodóvar, 1990)
Author(s): Leticia Santamaría Ciordiapp.: 287–305 (19)More LessThis article examines the decisions involved in translating swear words and sexually explicit language in Pedro Almodóvar’s film ¡Átame! (“Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down!”) from Spanish into English and Polish. Possible motivations for specific renditions will be suggested via a comparison of the source and target language versions. This analysis aims to investigate how the target culture and the film industry can influence the sometimes-delicate task of translating obscene and strong language. Beyond the mere transfer of words from one language into another, translating is, above all, an intercultural activity in which ideology and social values play an important role in the translation process. Therefore, the characteristics of the target culture must be considered before analyzing the translation product. Moreover, the cost-benefit criterion is a crucial component of audiovisual translation, especially in the film industry. Reflection on the circumstances in which the film was released in the United States and in Poland allows for predictions about what to expect from the translation and also establishes a hypothesis for testing. This article calls for reflection on translation decisions and the author’s influence on how closely the translation follows the original. Likewise, the article examines the extent to which economic interests prevail over socio-cultural values.
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The translation of Arabic lexical collocations
Author(s): Sattar Izwainipp.: 306–328 (23)More LessCollocation is the tendency of lexical items to habitually co-occur in their immediate environment and is a result of arbitrary attraction between words which tend to associate with each other. Lexical collocation is the association of content words. This article investigates the translation of Arabic lexical collocations into English and discusses the methods and challenges of dealing with Arabic collocations cross-linguistically. First, collocation types, patterns, structures and restrictions are outlined. Other issues such as semantic and syntactic features as well as register are touched upon. Arabic Corpora were used to detect and verify occurrences of collocations. The article then discusses strategies of translating Arabic lexical collocations into English.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 19 (2024)
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Volume 18 (2023)
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Volume 17 (2022)
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Volume 16 (2021)
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Volume 15 (2020)
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Volume 14 (2019)
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Volume 13 (2018)
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Volume 12 (2017)
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Volume 11 (2016)
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Volume 10 (2015)
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Volume 9 (2014)
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Volume 8 (2013)
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Volume 7 (2012)
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Volume 6 (2011)
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Volume 5 (2010)
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Volume 4 (2009)
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Volume 3 (2008)
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Volume 2 (2007)
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Volume 1 (2006)
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