13.Translation - style, effect and literary translation.ppt

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1. TRANSLATION
Lingua Inglese 2 LM

2. The word “genre” has a different connotation
when applied to literature
Prose, poetry, drama
A literary genre (prose, poetry, drama) is different
from non-literary genre (recipe, newsletter,
article)
There are sub genres of prose (e.g. novella),
poetry (e.g. haiku) and drama (e.g. farce)
Sub-genres can be adapted or translated or a
mix of the two

3. There is a difference between adapting a
literary text and translating it.
Adaptation could mean taking an idea
from a literary text and completely
rewriting it, whereas translation refers
directly to the language of the source
text.

4. • SAME SUB-GENRE IN TT ?
• SAME EFFECT IN TT?
• IS THE ST USED IN THE TT?
• WHAT KIND OF LANGUAGE IN
TT?

5. Commedia
dell’arte
Carlo Goldoni
Servitore di
due padroni
1743 Venice
• Farce
• Richard Bean
• One Man Two

Guv’nors
• 1960’s
Brighton

6. ADAPTED to
1960’s Brighton
ST not used
• SAME SUB-GENRE (FARCE)
• SAME EFFECT (COMEDY)
• MODERN LANGUAGE +
DIALECT

7. Aesthetics more important than
semantic equivalence
Understand perspective of the writer of
the ST
Equivalent effect – same effect on
readers of TT as on readers of ST;
foreignisation may be needed

8. Analyse the ST
the quality of the analysis depends on the
translator’s sensitivity and awareness of
literary style and nuance; knowledge of ST
culture
Make TT choices in accordance with
general approach and ST analysis
Pay special attention to specific linguistic
areas ……..

9. Repetition of the same sound at the beginning
of consecutive words
“The surrender of her weary ghost to the
keeping of stars and sea was stirring like the
sight of a glorious triumph.”
From Joseph Conrad’s
“Youth”
“Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft
to the spirit and soul of our senses
Sweetens the stress of surprising suspicion that
sobs in the semblance of sound and a sigh...”
Charles Swinburne’s
“Nephelidia”

10. An implied or indirect reference
Writers often allude to well-known
texts/people in their works to give a sharper
edge to the point they are making.
Four types of allusions are likely to occur
regularly in literature written in English:
biblical, classical, cultural, and literary

11. Biblical:
“Decency forbade that he should take the door
off its rickety hinges, like Samson at the gates
of Gaza.”
Classical:
“Of those pedestrian Paphians who abound
In decent London when the daylight is o’er.”

12. Cultural
“Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(Which was rather late for me)—
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.”

13. Literary
“All night the dread less Angel unpursu’dThrough
Heav’ns wide Champain held his way, till Morn,Wak’t
by the circling Hours, with rosie handUnbarr’d the
gates of Light. There is a CaveWithin the Mount of
God, fast by his Throne” (Milton)
“dread less Angel” = “Abdiel”, a fearless angel
“circling Hours” = “The Horae”, daughters of Zeus and
Themis - “Thallo (Spring), Auxo (Summer) and Carpo
(Fall)

“ with rosie hand” = “rosy fingered dawn” (Odyssey 2)

14. “The calm Madonna o’er your head
Smiles, col bambino, on the bed
Where but your chaste ears I must spare
Where, as we said, vous faites votre affaire.”
Arthur Hugh Clough
How do you deal with the idea of foreigness in the
ST
when the SL is already foreign to the reader?
How do you get an equivalent effect of foreigness?

15. Writers sometimes deviate from the
accepted grammatical usage of their time for
different reasons.
“Says gorging Jim to guzzling Jacky
We have no wittles, so we must eat we.”
How do you deal with ungrammatical usage
in the ST ? You want to maintain the
strangeness of the changed syntax
(equivalent effect) but if you change synytax
too much a text quickly becomes
unintelligible.

16. storm in a teacup = tempesta in un bicchere d’acqua
Here the translation is easy? But what about the
more
obscure, literary uses of metaphor?
“...the animal within me licking the chops of
memory.”
“a smile coyly bridged the crack in the door.”
How do you translate unusual metaphors when
there is no direct ST-TT equivalent?

17. Advertising is a non-literary text which
often makes use of literary effects
through word play that exploits
polysemy, homonymy and metaphor:
Your eyes will fall in love with new 1-day ACUVUE
contact lenses. Arrange a date today. 1-Day ACUVUE.
Johnson & Johnson.
Trust our blend of herbs and spices to get you out of a
stew. Are your dishes tired, run down, depressed? Take
heart. The chefs at Knorr have just the remedy. Eight
different stock cubes created with one thing in mind. To
enliven everyday meals …..

18. Advertising is a non-literary text which
often makes use of literary effects
through word play that exploits
polysemy, homonymy and metaphor:
Your eyes will fall in love with new 1-day ACUVUE
contact lenses. Arrange a date today. 1-Day ACUVUE.
Johnson & Johnson.
Trust our blend of herbs and spices to get you out of a
stew. Are your dishes tired, run down, depressed?
Take heart. The chefs at Knorr have just the remedy.
Eight different stock cubes created with one thing in
mind. To enliven everyday meals …..

19. Fig.6 An example of a visual Pun taken from Calvin & Hobbes

20. PUNS

22. There is often the same difficulty of translating name and
culture -specific words in literary texts as there is in non-
literary
texts
[...] and presently the porter and the Tramp Major brought our
supper across from the workhouse. 173
Old ‘Grandpa’, a tramp of seventy who made his living, or a great
part of it, by collecting cigarette ends and selling the tobacco... 201
 ‘The Doctor’—he was a real doctor, who had been struck off the
register for some offence... 201
Shorty’s procedure was to stop out- side a pub and play one tune...

[...] and the other, a hairy, uncouth animal whom we called the
Magyar... 71
My Little Cherished Wolf... 38 George Orwell, Down and Out in
Paris and London

23. There is often the same difficulty of translating name and
culture -specific words in literary texts as there is in non-
literary
texts
[...] and presently the porter and the Tramp Major brought our
supper across from the workhouse. 173
Old ‘Grandpa’, a tramp of seventy who made his living, or a great
part of it, by collecting cigarette ends and selling the tobacco... 201
 ‘The Doctor’—he was a real doctor, who had been struck off the
register for some offence... 201
Shorty’s procedure was to stop out- side a pub and play one tune...

[...] and the other, a hairy, uncouth animal whom we called the
Magyar... 71
My Little Cherished Wolf... 38 George Orwell, Down and Out in
Paris and London

25. Sometimes writers invent new words to
strengthen the illocutionary power of
their texts.
“Moreunder, which is to subtract, not add...”
“A sharp fragillycut nose”

26. Sometimes writers invent new words to
strengthen the illocutionary power of
their texts.
“Moreunder, which is to subtract, not
add...”
“A sharp fragillycut nose”

27. A style of writing that exhibits a fairly
dense poetic register in relatively few
words, stanzas, or paragraphs:
“Morning dawned at last, slowly,
with a pale yellow dome of light
rising silently above the bluffs, which
stand like a huge storm-devastated
castle, just east of the city.”

28. Rhyme:
identical stressed vowels and the consonants
succeeding them at the end of a word
Meter:
systematically arranged and measured
rhythm in verse
Both rhyme and meter are very difficult to
translate, especially into languages with a
different vowel and consonant distribution.

29. There are a number of linguistic areas that
literary
translators need to be sensitive to:
alliteration
allusion
foreign words
grammar and syntax
metaphor and wordplay
names
neologisms
poetic register
rhyme and metre

30. Landers, Clifford (2001) Literary
Translation: A Practical Guide. UK:
Cromwell Press Ltd.
Lefevere, André (1992) Translating
Literature: Practice and Theory in a
Comparative Literature Context. New
York: MLA of America.