Lawrence Venuti

The movement of global populations, and subsequently the task of translation, underlies contemporary culture. Economic and environmental migration, forced political exiles, and the plight of refugees are now superimposed upon the intricacies of ancient and modern diasporas, generations of colonization, and the transportation of slaves. This timely anthology considers translation's ongoing role in cultural navigation, empathy, and understanding disparate experiences. It explores the approaches of artists, poets, and theorists in negotiating increasingly protean identities—from the intrinsic intimacy of language, to translation's embedded structures of knowledge production and interaction, to its limitations of expression, and, ultimately, its importance in a world of multiple perspectives.

Artists surveyed include Meric Algün Ringborg, Geta Brătescu, Tanya Bruguera, Jesse Darling, Chto Delat, Chohreh Feyzdjou, Susan Hiller, Glenn Ligon, Teresa Margolles, Shirin Neshat, Hélio Oiticica, Pratchaya Phinthong, Kurt Schwitters, Yinka Shonibare, Mladen Stilinović, Erika Tan, Kara Walker, Wu Tsang

Writers include Hannah Arendt, James Baldwin, Walter Benjamin, Judith Butler, Luis Camnitzer, Jean Fisher, Stuart Hall, bell hooks, Sarat Maharaj, Martha Rosler, Bertrand Russell, Simon Sheikh, Gayatri Spivak, Hito Steyerl, Lawrence Venuti

EUROPEAN CANON IN THE LIGHT OF CONTEMPORARY TRANSLATION THEORY

It is generally assumed that the primary criterion for a work to enter the literary canon is its originality. However, the author of this article analyses the European canon in the light of modern theories of translation. Szczerbowski utilizes the concept of Patrick O’Neill to distinguish three models of translation: traditional, metatextual and intertextual. He describes the relationship between the original text and the translation, using the terms introduced by Lawrence Venuti. Chinese translation theory, translator’s footnotes and cover (treated as intersemiotic translation) are also reflected upon this chapter.

Citation (formatted-apa)
Szczerbowski, T. (2012). Kanon europejski w świetle współczesnej teorii przekładu. W: E. Wichrowska (red.), Europejski kanon literacki (s. 173–178). Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.

From a classical point of view which was dominant in 1950s, linguistic transfer from a language into another language is simply defined as "translation". Some scholars however think that the use of only the concept of translation in this sense is not sufficient for the exact definition. As known, in order for the (inter lingual) translation action to take place, a bilateral relationship is always established between the source and the target text. But apart from the transfer of linguistic elements in the source text to the target setting, cultural elements are also conveyed into the target language. In connection the translator may sometimes adopt strategies such as adaptation, domestication, updating, or even generalization in the translation process rather than seeking for only direct translation. As for the use of such strategies as domestication, adaptation and so forth in the translation action, some questions may arise here: Is this action through the use of these mentioned strategies by the translator a translation or is it more than a translation? Should this action be called just a translation action, or should it be named differently because what is in the source text is transferred into the target language in a different respect by adopting above mentioned strategies? For example translator may also prefer to deviate a target text production from the source text intentionally thanks to these strategies. In this study, in the context of the hypothesis and these questions, we explain the concepts of the translator's visibility and invisibility. In the light of the invisibility principle in translation by referring to Venuti's Translator's Invisibility (1995) the concept of translation was re-discussed, the findings were supported with examples and alternative concepts were introduced to the concept of translation.

This chapter investigates the 'badfilm' or paracinema celebration of translational errors in sub-standard subtitling, a practice that Abe Mark Nornes (2007) traces back to "to the silent era when early film critics ridiculed sloppy intertitles,” before discussing its resurgence within international Hong Kong cinema fandom circa the 1970s and 80s. While such B-grade subtitling sits easily within a 'badfilm' frame, I argue that inept subtitles or 'flubtitles' as they are sometimes called, do not simply delineate another genre of badfilm production or appreciation. More tellingly, they testify to the significance of the intercultural within badfilm movements, which they also necessarily destabilize by potentially transforming any film into bad film. With reference to Derridean deconstruction and Lawrence Venuti's The Translator's Invisibility (1995), I outline how B-grade subtitles might provide a means of reconceptualizing badness itself.

Many studies have been devoted to the translation of William Shakespeare’s bawdy wordplay, since Dirk Delabastita published his There’s a Double Tongue in 1993. Less researched, however, are his ribald multilingual puns, which exploit in an amusing way the sound or spelling likeness between words originating in languages as diverse as English, French, and Latin, to name only a few. Featuring as they do in multicultural contexts and being used to highlight the humorous situations that usually arise when characters from different linguistic backgrounds interact with each other, such instances of language require for their translation a foreignizing approach. When Mihnea Gheorghiu and George Volceanov set out to translate Shakespeare’s works into Romanian, they and the other translators involved in these projects sought to bring the target-text audience closer to the author’s socio-cultural milieu. By drawing a parallel between two Shakespearean ribald multilingual puns and two of their Romanian renditions, one originating in Gheorghiu’s edition, produced under the communist regime, and the other in Volceanov’s edition, translated in the 2010s, what this essay aims to show is that, although foreignizing in theory, these translations point to different understandings of what a foreignizing approach to translation actually involves.

Öz Çalışmada, haber çevirilerinde uygulanan "etno-merkezci eritme" ve "saldırgan sadakat" gibi iki stratejik yerlileştirme ilkesi ele alınmıştır. Bunlardan, etno-merkezci eritme stratejisinde, özgün metin, kaynak kültürün özelliklerinden ayrılarak, erek dil kültür değerlerine göre sadeleştirilmektedir. Diğer yandan, saldırgan sadakat, özgün metnin dilsel ve kültürel farkı korumasından ötürü, erek dil-kültürünün hegemonyasına boyun eğen geleneksel çeviri normlarına bir direnç niteliğindedir. Çağdaş çeviri anlayışı uyarınca, metinler erek okurun beklentilerine göre yerelleştirilmektedir. Çağdaş çeviri anlayışı uyarınca, metinler erek okurun beklentilerine göre yerelleştirilmektedir. Bu anlamda, habercilik hedefleri pahasına kaynak metnin ortadan kaldıran haber-çeviri süreci geleneksel kaynak metne bağlılık çeviri paradigmasıyla bağdaşmasa bile çevirinin pragmatik doğasıyla uyumlu gözükmektedir. Bu itibarla, haber çeviri sürecini tanımlayan çevirmek-düzenlemek (trans-editing) söz yapımının, çevirinin salt bir aktarım olmadığına dair bir farkındalığı oluşturmak için, kullanılmakta olduğu açıktır. Bu söz yapımının paralelinde haber metinlerini çeviren, aktaran, yeniden düzenleyen ve baştan yazan hibrit bir çevirmen-gazeteci sureti ortaya çıkmıştır. Küreselleşmenin beraberinde getirdiği bir takım gelişmeyle çevirmen-gazetecinin işi kolaylaşırken aynı zamanda anlık iletişim ihtiyacına süratle karşılık vermek açısından zamansal kısıtlamalara sebep olduğu da görülmektedir. Anahtar Kelimeler: etno-merkezci eritme, saldırgan sadakat, yerlileştirme, haber çevirisi, hibrit çevirmen gazeteci, küreselleşme.

The present paper studies diverse procedures related to Venuti " s strategies of domestication and foreignisation in Farsi dubbing and subtitling of the English movie, Warcraft directed by Duncan Jones. The procedures of both domestication and foreignisation were studied and statically analysed for the purpose of exploring the film translation method (dubbing or subtitling) which is closer to target-language-culture and the one which is closer to source-language-culture. In other words it was intended to explore which translation strategy (domestication or foreignisation) dominates dubbing and which one dominates subtitling. The tertiary purpose was to compare the reasons of differences in dubbing versus subtitling on the one hand, and the reasons of differences of the target text from the source text. The statistical analysis revealed that in dubbing, cultural equivalence is the most frequently used procedure (38.26%) apparently for making the movie visible for the public Iranian audience and adjust the movie to cultural considerations. Henceforth, dubbing orients to domestication. However, subtitling, with literal translation as the most frequently used procedure (57.4%), orients to foreignisation. In dubbing of the movie, most differences are related to cultural equivalence (38.26%) and the literal translation (29.56%) is in the next step. An interesting point is that the procedure of calque is neither used in subtitling nor in dubbing. In subtitling, cultural equivalence stands in the second place (17.34) and explanation (9.50%) occupies the third place. Other procedures " frequencies show no meaningful difference. Once implemented on more cases, the findings of this study have the potentialities of generalization to identify the most frequently occurred errors in movie translation industry and henceforth suggesting translation solutions for rendering dubbing and subtitling with more degree of naturalness.

Deze paper onderzoekt het concept van “onzichtbaarheid” van de vertalers van Haruki Murakami in het Engelse en Nederlandse taalgebied. De onzichtbaarheid van de vertalers wordt geanalyseerd op drie verschillende niveaus. Ten eerste wordt er gekeken naar de vertaler als mens in de professionele vertaalcirkels en welke factoren –zoals academische functies, verdeling van werk en persoonlijke geschiedenis– invloed hebben op de zelfperceptie en zichtbaarheid van de vertaler. Daarna wordt er dieper ingegaan op de (on)zichtbaarheid van de vertaling zelf. Volgens Lawrence Venuti is het toepassen van de courante domesticating strategie, waarin een vertaling verondersteld wordt vloeiend en transparant te zijn, een cruciale factor in de miskenning van de vertaler omdat die als het ware verdwijnt in de tekst. De spanning tussen domesticatie aan de ene kant en een foreignizing techniek aan de andere, wordt besproken in het werk van Murakami, omdat de grenzen tussen bron- en doelcultuur in zijn verhalen vervagen door de sterke rol van de westerse cultuur in Japanse verhalen. De zichtbaarheid van de vertaler als persoon en van de vertaling worden dan cumulatief in rekening genomen bij het analyseren van de erkenning van vertalers in recensies en kritieken.

In an era when identity politics is being co-opted into wider nationalist agendas and diversity increasingly embroiled in ethnic division and separatism, how have artists engaged with cultural translation to open up the act of interpretation?

The paper discusses some aspects of the intellectual genealogy of one of the major representatives of postmodernism in translation studies, American theorist and translator Lawrence Venuti. Special attention is paid to Venuti’s relationship with French version of the poststructuralist theory: theoretical affinities with French philosophy had a great impact on his work, but still remain an unexplored subject. The issues addressed include theoretical and ideological links, as well as points of disagreement, between Venuti and three representatives of the “French Theory” who influenced his thinking the most: M. Foucault, J. Derrida and A. Berman. The author tries to challenge the widespread idea of the epistemological closeness between Venuti’s and Berman’s approaches to translation, and argues that Berman is quite wrongly considered as belonging to the postmodern theoretical framework.

Translation negotiates otherness. Hence, otherness can be regarded as a central component of the translation process. Moreover, via disciplines, such as philosophy and anthropology, otherness in the last two decades has entered Western theories and studies of translation and become an important analytical and normative category in the field of translation studies. Nevertheless, there is an apparent lack of research considering the concept itself as well as its history and current use in the field and its relevance for the practice of translation. This book can be regarded as a first attempt to fill this gap. It reconsiders the translation theories currently known as ‘foreignizing’ and shows that some of these draw on the same nationalist agenda that they try to transcend. Moreover, the ensuing case study proves that current translation practice is still governed by a nationalist assurance of linguistic and cultural differences. This book therefore concludes by calling for a change of perspective in the theoretical and practical approaches to translation. Translation should no longer be regarded as a means of delimiting our selves from a national other, but as a way to uncover the otherness underlying these alleged selves.

Yerlileştirme ve yabancılaştırma çeviri stratejilerine değinen ilk çeviribilimci Schleiermacher’in görüşlerini ve  Romantik akımın çevirinin yabancılaştırılarak aktarılması gerektiğine dair düşünceyi yirminci yüzyıldaki koşullara göre yeniden  ele alan Venuti bunları farklı bir potada eriterek çevirinin görünürlüğü ve görünmezliği kavramlarını ortaya atmıştır. Venutiye göre çevirmen kaynak metni erek kültüre adapte ederek aktardığında, bir diğer ifade ile yerlileştirme çeviri stratejisine başvurduğunda görünmez olmayı ancak yabancılaştırma çeviri stratejisine başvurduğunda görünür olmayı tercih etmektedir. Bir diğer ifade ile çevirmenin görünmezliği çevirinin  orijinal dilinde yazılmış gibi okunması,  görünürlüğü ise çevirinin erek kitle tarafından çeviri olduğu bilinerek okunulması anlamına gelmektedir.  Bu çalışmada, çevirmenin görünür olmayı tercih ederek bir simulatör rolünde çeviri yapmasının mı yoksa görünmez olmayı tercih ederek gerçek bir yazar gibi çeviri yapmasının mı etik olduğu tartışılmış ve çeviribilimsel açıdan en somut araştırma nesnesinin çeviri ürünü olduğu düşünüldüğünde, çevirinin bir bilim dalı olarak olgunlaşmayı sürdürebilmesi ve çeviri metnin de en az kaynak metin kadar orijinal bir metin olduğunu vurgulamak için çevirinin çeviri gibi okunması gerektiği sonucuna varılmıştır. Çalışmada betimleyici yaklaşım uygulanmıştır. Anahtar Sözcükler: Çevirmenin görünürlüğü, çevirmenin görünmezliği, yerlileştirme, yabancılaştrma, Venuti, simulatör.

Este estudo, primeiramente, apresenta uma discussão fundamentada na teoria e na experiência, tendo como temática central a tradução cultural. Deste modo, as discussões aqui desenvolvidas apontam a afinidade existente entre os Estudos da Tradução e os Estudos Culturais, devido à
influência que estes últimos exercem sobre os estudos da tradução cultural. O estudo traz concepções referentes à tradução cultural, abordando alguns aspectos importantes e intrínsecos a esta temática, tais como negociação e mediação cultural. Expõe ainda algumas considerações, especificamente, sobre a tradução da cultura brasileira, a partir de uma breve menção a pressupostos e discursos proferidos sobre a cultura do Brasil, que culminam em sua tradução cultural. A seguir, apresenta três obras do escritor brasileiro Milton Hatoum – Dois irmãos (2006), Cinzas do Norte (2005) e Órfãos do Eldorado (2008a) – as quais foram traduzidas pelo tradutor e crítico literário inglês John Gledson. Por fim, o estudo, embasado nos Estudos da Tradução e nos Estudos Culturais, imbui-se de analisar as traduções das respectivas obras, a saber: The Brothers (2002), Ashes of the Amazon (2008b) e Orphans of Eldorado (2009a). Nesse sentido, este trabalho aponta soluções encontradas pelo tradutor de Hatoum no que se refere, sobretudo, à tradução de elementos culturais presentes nestes romances, a fim de demonstrar que Gledson, ao final das traduções – por mais que suas ideias sobre tradução denotem, por vezes, forte apego ao texto fonte e certa sacralização deste – apresenta um novo
texto, isto é, uma reescrita. Para tanto, esta pesquisa conta com o embasamento teórico de importantes estudiosos das áreas dos Estudos da Tradução e dos Estudos Culturais, como Denys Cuche (1999), Peter Burke (2003, 2009), Stuart Hall (2011), Susan Bassnett (1998, 2007),
André Lefevere (2007) e também do tradutor John Gledson (1994, 2007, 2014).

This work is a collection of three essays and a playscript. The prefatory essays lay out the progression of my thinking as a “translator”—a term I use under erasure because I no longer think it serves as an accurate indicator of what “translators” actually contend with and do—while the play itself is a “translation” of Federico García Lorca’s Mariana Pineda. The collection as a whole turns largely on the word “transduction”—the term I’ve chosen to replace “translation”—whose emergence was born of my thinking, my working, and my thinking about my working over the months of “translating”. The essays have three main aims: to clarify the word “transduction” and, thereby, the concept it represents; to demonstrate how I propose to use it and its grammatical derivatives; and to explain why I’m capturing it for the fields of meaning transfer—as well as for the meaning-transfer aspects of all fields. The essays start out dealing with theory and move gradually into praxis, while the final section is pure product: an English-language playscript entitled The Good Woman of Granada, meant to be used by actors and academics alike. The work in its entirety is, thus, an exposure of my thinking at various points in its evolution through the deliberate identification of several discrete steps along my path to and through the complexity of “translation”.

KEYWORDS:
transduction, translation, adaptation, Federico García Lorca, Mariana Pineda