Episodes
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Viviane Carvalho da Annunciação (CLAS, Cambridge)
Jennifer Harris (Fac English, Cambridge)
Moderator: Monica Boria
Within the domain of literary translation, poetry has traditionally attracted a great deal of scholarly attention (Holmes 1970, 1988; Lefevere 1975, 1992; Bassnett 1980; Hermans 1985; Eco 2003; Robinson 2010; Jones 2011; Reynolds 2011, Drury 2015). The constraints offered by rhyme and meter may sometimes appear to justify the statement (often attributed to Robert Frost) that ‘poetry is that which is lost in translation’. The notion of translatability frequently seems to defy the very essence of poetry since it is a literary medium in which meaning and structural form seem to be inextricably linked. Even proponents of strikingly different approaches to poetry translation usually agree that any expectation of absolute ‘fidelity’ (whatever that is) must necessarily be qualified or compromised in one way or another. But which aspects of a given poem can be safely jettisoned, and which must be doggedly preserved? Nabokov’s literal approach contrasts with Ezra Pound’s ‘remakes’, and the ongoing debate sparked by Paul Celan’s work offers numerous challenging and conflicting insights. From crib translation to ‘versioning’, from tribute to parody, from Bringhurst’s ‘re-elicitings’ to Queneau’s exercises in style – translation has been an important aspect of creative practice for many influential poets.
This Workshop will focus on practical aspects of poetry translation in the 20th century, especially the role of the avant-guarde, concrete poetry, and French poetry.
Concrete Poetry and Scientific Exchanges
This talk is divided into two parts: the first will trace the use of scientific discourse in the creative exchange between Scottish and Brazilian concrete poets; and second is going to invite members of the audience to creatively engage with the poems by re-translating and re-interpreting some of the concepts the poets developed in their work. My hypothesis is that the concrete poets create this interdisciplinary dialogue as a metaphor for modernity and avant-gardism. The audience, though, is invited to reflect upon how science can be translated into art and how this creative exchange is able to renew both fields of research and knowledge. As for Concrete poetry, it is a term generally applied to a variety of artistic movements that followed the post-war frustration with traditional forms of art. Part of a collective search for new artistic materials, concrete poetry is the product of two traditions that emerged in the fifties, one of the Bolivian-born Swiss writer, Eugene Gomringer, and the other the Brazilian Noigandres group formed by Haroldo de Campos, Augusto de Campos and Décio Pignatari (Bann 7). Through a productive dialogue, Gomringer and Noigandres brought together these two distinctive artistic projects and disseminated the movement worldwide. Through this presentation, I wish to argue that their involvement with science is simultaneously, an attempt to update avant-garde discourses and enhance the interdisciplinary and creative possibilities of poetic discourse.
Dr Viviane Carvalho da Annunciação is a Teaching Associate at the Centre for Latin American Studies (CLAS) and a Senior Member at Robinson College (Cambridge). She holds a PhD in Literary Studies from the University of São Paulo, where she also received a joint degree in Portuguese and English Studies. She is the author of a book on Northern Irish poetry, Exile, Home and City: The Poetic Architecture of Belfast (Humanitas, USP). It was during her lectureship in English Language and Cultural Studies at the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil) that she started to examine more closely the portrayal of Brazil and Latin America in English-language poetry. As a visiting scholar at CLAS in 2014 she helped to organize the exhibition ‘a token of concrete affection’ at St. Catharine’s College (Cambridge), which celebrated the fifty-year anniversary of the first concrete poetry exhibition. This featured the Brazilian Noigandres group that was responsible for disseminating the movement in both the United Kingdom and Latin America. Her current research interests also include Brazilian and Latin American avant-garde, poetry and politics and new methodologies in language learning.
Translation and Metaphor
Metaphors are an integral part of what it means to talk about translation, from the ‘belles infidèles’ of the 18th Century to pastoral ideas of grafting or transplanting, the ‘afterlife of the text’ or images of transportation or bridging different cultures. Indeed, the words ‘translation’ and ‘metaphor’ share a common image of carrying something across a boundary, and as according to Aristotle metaphor proceeds by means of analogy or similarity, the same concept of similarity or resemblance is also at stake in translation. My research looks at American translations of 20th Century French poetry, reading originals and translations alongside theory to explore ways in which a series of metaphors can be brought out through them. These metaphors, of mirroring, or fragmentation and of repetition, combine to construct a thesis on the relationship between similarity and translation. In this talk I will specifically discuss the metaphor of repetition, because it has very much the same thing at stake as both translation and metaphor itself, ie the question of similarity. I will talk about Jennifer Moxley’s translation of Jacqueline Risset’s collection of poems entitled The Translation Begins, in the context of Deleuze’s writing on repetition as difference. After this I intend to open it up to the audience to discuss their own favourite metaphors for translation, and what information we can glean from these metaphors about how we view the original, the translated text, the reader, and the translation process. Finally I hope to bring in some pieces of poetry which I will ask people to have a go at translating through the lenses of specific metaphors, so that we can discuss how this exercise affects the finished product.
Jenny Harris is a fourth-year PhD student in the English department at the University of Cambridge. She studied for her BA in French also in Cambridge, with a year abroad at the ENS in Lyon, where she took courses in comparative literature, theatre and creative writing. After her BA, she moved into Translation Studies and into the English department, where she has since completed an MPhil in Criticism and Culture, with a dissertation on John Ashbery’s French translations. Her PhD is on the concept of similarity in translation, and the metaphors used to describe translation, focusing on twentieth-century French poetry translated in America, among them Guillaume Apollinaire, Edmond Jabès and Jacqueline Risset, alongside the theoretical work of Walter Benjamin, Gilles Deleuze, Michael Cronin and Jacques Derrida. Jenny has presented her work internationally, including at the meeting of the International Comparative Literature Association in Vienna in summer 2016, and at Princeton University as part of a graduate conference on Modernist Fragmentation. Alongside her research, she is currently an Associate Lecturer for a course on World Literature at Anglia Ruskin University. -
Episodes manquant?
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Translation and Multimodality: Rosa van Hensbergen Films
Because the speaker, Rosa van Hensbergen, could not be present on the day of the Translation and Multimodality conference at CRASSH, she prepared two short b/w films to reflect on Japanese experimental performance, in particular the butoh work of Hijikata Tatsumi and the performance work of Dumb Type founder Furuhashi Teiji. Projected at the same time, one above the other, on the side wall of our seminar room, the features included extracts from the performers' work (top film) and van Hensbergen's commentary and other visual / textual material (bottom film). -
Session 1
Gunther Kress (UCL)-Translation in a social semiotic multimodal approach: from bottom up, right to left, inside out
In my talk I try to imagine and sketch what a social semiotic and multimodal approach to translation might be about, what it might be like, what it might encompass -- and how it might differ from a more traditional approach. As I assume that many in the audience will have no knowledge of what either Social Semiotics or Multimodality are, I will briefly say something about these two topics. Using an entirely conventional definition of 'translation' -- "a carrying across, removal, transporting; transfer of meaning" -- I will explore how the terms in that definition might be thought about in a Social Semiotic / Multimodal approach. One part of my interest is the issue of “naming”: that is, to what extent the existing terms continue to be useful / useable or not -- terms such as language, transcription, representation, transformation. The other part of my interest -- in relation to Multimodality specifically -- is the question of the availability of apt notational resources for the process of “transporting” of meaning. The third point is the very question of “transporting meaning” itself: that of course is not new in discussions of translation, but might be worth looking at from a social semiotic perspective. -
Youssef Taha (BBC journalist and translator)
Any text can be read as an expression of a given culture or ideology. The translated text, in mediating the author’s voice through that of the translator, presents a complex juxtaposition of ideological viewpoints. As Bassnett and Lefevere state in the introduction to the volume Translation, History and Culture, ‘Translation, like all (re)writings, is never innocent’ (1990). In the late 1980s and early 90s, the so-called Manipulation School stressed the power of translation to convey an ideological message that does not necessarily replicate – and can sometimes invert – that of the original text. According to this view, ‘all translation implies a degree of manipulation of the source text for a certain purpose’ (Hermans 1985).
Censorship refers broadly to the suppression or distortion of information intended to prevent the dissemination of ideas which run counter to the prevailing ideology or notions of decorum. Censorship is typically exerted by oppressive regimes, but even within what we like to think of as free societies some forms of censorship are felt to be necessary.
The work of the censor and that of the translator are related in many ways. As Boase-Beier and Holman put it, ‘both are gatekeepers, standing at crucial points of control, monitoring what comes in and what stays outside any given cultural or linguistic territory’ (1998). It is often difficult to distinguish between institutional control and the more subtle forms of control determined by social norms (Timockzco 2009). Translators are sometimes willing censors. At other times they are subject to censorship themselves. What is the translator’s ethical responsibility? Is it ever legitimate for censorship to be channelled through translation? What means of resistance to institutional censorship are available to the translator? -
Francesca Billiani (Manchester)
Federico Federici (UCL)
Rory Finnin (Cambridge)
Any text can be read as an expression of a given culture or ideology. The translated text, in mediating the author’s voice through that of the translator, presents a complex juxtaposition of ideological viewpoints. As Bassnett and Lefevere state in the introduction to the volume Translation, History and Culture, ‘Translation, like all (re)writings, is never innocent’ (1990). In the late 1980s and early 90s, the so-called Manipulation School stressed the power of translation to convey an ideological message that does not necessarily replicate – and can sometimes invert – that of the original text. According to this view, ‘all translation implies a degree of manipulation of the source text for a certain purpose’ (Hermans 1985).
Censorship refers broadly to the suppression or distortion of information intended to prevent the dissemination of ideas which run counter to the prevailing ideology or notions of decorum. Censorship is typically exerted by oppressive regimes, but even within what we like to think of as free societies some forms of censorship are felt to be necessary.
The work of the censor and that of the translator are related in many ways. As Boase-Beier and Holman put it, ‘both are gatekeepers, standing at crucial points of control, monitoring what comes in and what stays outside any given cultural or linguistic territory’ (1998). It is often difficult to distinguish between institutional control and the more subtle forms of control determined by social norms (Timockzco 2009). Translators are sometimes willing censors. At other times they are subject to censorship themselves. What is the translator’s ethical responsibility? Is it ever legitimate for censorship to be channelled through translation? What means of resistance to institutional censorship are available to the translator?
The panel discussion intends to address some of the pressing questions on censorship and translation that have been the object of research in recent years. Experts in this field will reflect upon the linguistic, cultural, and socio-political implications of translation ventures that are situated close to conflict zones (of one kind or another). -
Professor Andrew Rothwell (Swansea)
Abstract
In recent years, the art of translation has witnessed an unprecedented technological revolution. For many people, websites such as Google Translate are rapidly becoming the primary resource for obtaining a rough-and-ready translation of a given source-language text. If a Hungarian rendering of the first sentence of this current paragraph is required, then it can be obtained instantaneously: ‘Az elmúlt években, a művészet fordítás tanúja technológiai forradalmat’. The need for long years of patient tussling with conjugations, declensions, and the mysteries of vowel harmony is (seemingly) eliminated. However, few of the so-called ‘naïve users’ of these online translation systems know how they work. And even if they are dimly aware that some kind of modelling is being deployed, they generally do not know how or why it is applied, or whether a given system is rule-based, example-based, or statistical in nature (Trujillo 2012; Bhattacharyya 2015). Yet in order to evaluate the significance of any such systems, it is important to understand how they are trained, what kinds of bilingual corpora are used, and which particular kinds of linguistic patterns are modelled. There are also important distinctions between the kinds of texts translated. Machine translation systems struggle with poetry, but cope more successfully with certain kinds of genre-specific technical writing. -
Adrià de Gispert (Cambridge)
Marcus Tomalin (Cambridge)
In recent years, the art of translation has witnessed an unprecedented technological revolution. For many people, websites such as Google Translate are rapidly becoming the primary resource for obtaining a rough-and-ready translation of a given source-language text. If a Hungarian rendering of the first sentence of this current paragraph is required, then it can be obtained instantaneously: ‘Az elmúlt években, a művészet fordítás tanúja technológiai forradalmat’. The need for long years of patient tussling with conjugations, declensions, and the mysteries of vowel harmony is (seemingly) eliminated. However, few of the so-called ‘naïve users’ of these online translation systems know how they work. And even if they are dimly aware that some kind of modelling is being deployed, they generally do not know how or why it is applied, or whether a given system is rule-based, example-based, or statistical in nature (Trujillo 2012; Bhattacharyya 2015). Yet in order to evaluate the significance of any such systems, it is important to understand how they are trained, what kinds of bilingual corpora are used, and which particular kinds of linguistic patterns are modelled. There are also important distinctions between the kinds of texts translated. Machine translation systems struggle with poetry, but cope more successfully with certain kinds of genre-specific technical writing.
This discussion panel will explore different aspects of the impact of recent technology on the art and craft of translation. It will assess the professional contexts of use of machine translation systems, and it will offer a chance to reflect upon the overarching anxiety that such systems pose a potential threat to human-produced translations. -
Alfredo Modenessi (Professor of Comparative Studies in English Literature, Drama and Translation, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México-UNAM)
Moderator: Dr Angeles Carreres (MML, University ofCambridge)
(This session was postponed from last week Monday 21 Nov) Apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Literature on the translation of drama often starts by distinguishing two types of translation: translating for the page and translating for the stage. Notwithstanding its final purpose, the hybrid nature of the dramatic text, made up of both verbal and non-verbal elements, raises specific challenges for the translator in dealing with visual and acoustic codes, oral traits, prosodic components, kinesic, cultural and semiotic features, dramatic conventions, and aspects of performance and mise en scène.
The concept of ‘performability’ itself, in the sense of a gestural dimension that is seen as inherent in the language of a dramatic text, has been at the centre of a long critical debate in translation studies (Bassnett 1985, 1991; Parvis 1989; Espasa 2009), with some scholars stating that there is no sound theoretical basis for arguing that ‘performability’ can or does exist (Bassnett 1991). More recent approaches claim that performability may be seen as a pragmatic instrument linked to the style, conventions, and ideology of the target culture environment, rather than as an abstract and universal quality of the source text (Espasa 2000; Bigliazzi et al. 2013).
Notions such as cultural transfer and acculturation, adaptation or version are central to the translation of theatre, as are issues such as the translation of humour on stage. Translating a play often involves collaborative work between the translator and theatre directors and actors that requires an awareness of differences in rehearsal and performance conventions, as well as differing audience expectations. Important ethical considerations arise too, as the translation process is often mediated by ideological or commercial concerns. As a result, we witness cases in which texts are cut, adapted, rewritten and still described as ‘translations’, or the frequent practice of commissioning a translator to produce a literal translation that is then handed over to a well-known playwright to whom the translation is then credited.
The workshop will mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death by focusing on translations of his plays in various languages. -
Professor Catherine Boyle (Professor of Latin American Cultural Studies, King’s College, London)
Dr Cristina Marinetti (Lecturer in Translation, Cardiff University )
Professor Carole-Anne Upton (Pro Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean, Professor of Theatre, Middlesex University London)
Moderator: Dr María Noriega-Sánchez (MML, University of Cambridge)
Literature on the translation of drama often starts by distinguishing two types of translation: translating for the page and translating for the stage. Notwithstanding its final purpose, the hybrid nature of the dramatic text, made up of both verbal and non-verbal elements, raises specific challenges for the translator in dealing with visual and acoustic codes, oral traits, prosodic components, kinesic, cultural and semiotic features, dramatic conventions, and aspects of performance and mise en scène.
The concept of ‘performability’ itself, in the sense of a gestural dimension that is seen as inherent in the language of a dramatic text, has been at the centre of a long critical debate in translation studies (Bassnett 1985, 1991; Parvis 1989; Espasa 2009), with some scholars stating that there is no sound theoretical basis for arguing that ‘performability’ can or does exist (Bassnett 1991). More recent approaches claim that performability may be seen as a pragmatic instrument linked to the style, conventions, and ideology of the target culture environment, rather than as an abstract and universal quality of the source text (Espasa 2000; Bigliazzi et al. 2013).
Notions such as cultural transfer and acculturation, adaptation or version are central to the translation of theatre, as are issues such as the translation of humour on stage. Translating a play often involves collaborative work between the translator and theatre directors and actors that requires an awareness of differences in rehearsal and performance conventions, as well as differing audience expectations. Important ethical considerations arise too, as the translation process is often mediated by ideological or commercial concerns. As a result, we witness cases in which texts are cut, adapted, rewritten and still described as ‘translations’, or the frequent practice of commissioning a translator to produce a literal translation that is then handed over to a well-known playwright to whom the translation is then credited. -
Dr Carol O’Sullivan (Senior Lecturer in Translation Studies, University of Bristol)
Moderator: Monica Boria (Language Centre, Cambridge)
Humour is a universal human trait found across all cultures and throughout history, and one deeply embedded in them. Translating the combination of verbal humour with referential humour, for example, has often been likened to translating poetry: impossible. The imperative of the perlocutionary effect (amusement) complicates matters further, not to mention the fact that, to an extent, a sense of humour is innate and cannot really be learnt. However, the increasing global demand for the translation, or adaptation, of humour in a variety of texts and contexts (literary, film and television, live interpretation, etc.), has produced a growing body of research by scholars and translators from many countries and academic disciplines (Delabastita, 1996, 1997; Chiaro, 1992, 2005, 2010; Attardo, 2002; Vandaele, 2002; Zabalbeascoa, 1996, 2005, 2016). How does humour in film or television travel? How is subtitled/dubbed humour received? These are some of the questions we will be addressing. -
Professor Delia Chiaro (Department of Interpreting and Translation, University of Bologna)
Dr Graeme Ritchie (Honorary Senior Research Fellow, School of Natural and Computing Sciences, University of Aberdeen)
Moderator: Dr Marcus Tomalin (English/Engineering, University of Cambridge)
Humour is a universal human trait found across all cultures and throughout history, and one deeply embedded in them. Translating the combination of verbal humour and referential humour, for example, has often been likened to translating poetry: impossible. The imperative of the perlocutionary effect (amusement) complicates matters further, not to mention the fact that, to an extent, a sense of humour is innate and cannot really be learnt. However, the increasing global demand for the translation, or adaptation, of humour in a variety of texts and contexts (literary, film and television, live interpretation, etc.), has produced a growing body of research by scholars and translators from various academic disciplines worldwide (Delabastita, 1996, 1997; Chiaro, 1992, 2005, 2010; Attardo, 2002; Vandaele, 2002; Zabalbeascoa, 1996, 2005, 2016). How should translation render parody when the parodied text is unknown to the foreign audience? If a degree of transgression is inherent in humour, what happens if its target is taboo in the receiving culture? What are the specific ethical implications for the translator? These are some of the questions we will be addressing.
The panel will discuss some of the questions that have emerged from the debate, exploring how the translation of humour has been addressed in different cultures and historical periods from a range of theoretical and practical perspectives. -
Lucile Desblache (Professor of Translation and Transcultural Studies, University of Roehampton)
Andrew Jones (Selwyn College, Cambridge)
Judi Palmer (Former Surtitle Co-ordinator, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden)
Rachel Godsill (Soprano)
Music may be a universal ‘language’ (of some sort), but as an art form it is certainly embedded in particular cultural and textual contexts. The distinctive challenges of ‘music-linked translation’ (Golomb 2005) have only recently started to receive focused scholarly attention. This is surprising since these challenges deeply inform our understanding of how translation adapts and transforms itself when constrained by non-linguistic structural forms (Gorlée 2005; Susam-Sarajeva 2008; Mateo 2012). The translation of texts that provide the basis for opera libretti, choral works, song texts, and the like, must necessarily accommodate the various non-verbal visual, musical, and emotional elements that are essential components of any given performance (Desblache 2007; Virkkunen 2004; Minors 2013). Consequently, rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic constraints sometimes powerfully delimit a purely semantic engagement with the import of the sung utterance. The precise nature of the constraints varies greatly, though, depending upon the specific purpose of the translation. More ‘literal’ renderings may be appropriate for programme notes and CD booklets, while more tightly restricted music-linked translations may be required as performance texts. Consequently, there are ongoing debates about whether or not opera libretti should be translated in an attempt to increase the accessibility of the genre, and there are also diverging views about which translation strategies should be preferred. The definitions of notions such as ‘musicality’, ‘singability’ and ‘performability’ remain troublesome, the location of the blurred boundaries between translation, adaptation, rewriting, re-creation is uncertain, the changing relationships between audience, language, and music are problematical, and the issue of the ‘(in)visibility’ of the translator remains a perplexing one. In addition, there is the important topic of surtitling, which alone prompts a careful consideration of the many practical, theoretical, and technical possibilities in the context of music-linked translation.
The panel discussion will enable academics and professional translators to consider how music-linked translation practices have differed over the centuries, while also providing a chance to reflect upon current conventions. -
Workshop
Anthea Bell (Translator)
Children’s literature is an increasingly important strand of the publishing industry, and the study of such texts is becoming a well-established field of academic research. However, there have been comparatively few studies of translations of children’s literature, especially in Anglo-American culture where English versions of children’s books originally written in other languages have never been particularly numerous. Nonetheless, prompted in part by the burgeoning interest in world literature and the rise of multiculturalism, there has been an increasing demand for foreign children’s books. This in turn has resulted in a larger number of translations and a significant growth in academic scholarship (Oittinen 2000; O’Sullivan 2005; van Coillie and Verschueren 2006; Frank 2007; Gonzáles Davies and Oittinen, 2008; Lathey, 2006 and 2010; Di Giovanni, Elefante, and Pederzoli 2010). Georges Mounin (1964) regarded children’s books as perhaps the most challenging of all for a translator because of their hybrid voice (e.g., narrative, poetic, dramatic), the constraints imposed by visual elements, the oral dimension (e.g., baby talk, non-verbal language), the double readership they address (the children and the adults that select them), and other factors. These are all important questions that have started to receive the critical attention they deserve.
Award-winning translator Anthea Bell will explore the translation of specific foreign children’s literary texts into English, providing opportunities for participants to consider the theoretical and practical demands that the task entails. -
Theodor Dunkelgrün (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, CRASSH, Cambridge)
Simone Kotva (Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge)
Tony Street (Assistant Director of Research in Islamic Studies, Divinity, Cambridge)
Moderator: Shady Hekmat Nasser (AMES, Cambridge)
The beginning of Western theorising of translation is often said to arrive with St Jerome’s Letter to Pammachius, in which the translator defends his Latin rendering of the Bible. This seminal text is largely referred to in support of ‘sense-for-sense’ translation, ignoring what might well be considered the more interesting exception to the rule made by St Jerome, namely that sacred scripture, ‘where even the order of the words is God’s doing’, must be translated word-for-word. Many would argue that even this is a claim too far, that sacred texts simply cannot be translated, and that translations from the original language in which the divine message was delivered are mere approximations (A. L. Tibawi, ‘Is the Qur’an translatable?’, in The Muslim World, vol. 52, 1962, pp. 4-16). How do we square such ideas with an evangelising purpose identifiable both in the Bible and the Koran? And where does the idea of the divinely inspired translator fit into such a model?
The panel discussion will bring together scholars associated with various theological, literary, and philosophical traditions, to reflect upon different aspects of the translation of sacred texts -
Daniel Hahn (Writer, Editor, and Translator)
Dr Gillian Lathey (Reader in Children's Literature, Department of English and Creative Writing, University of Roehampton)
Professor Maria Nikolajeva (Professor of Education, Director of the Cambridge-Homerton Research and Teaching Centre for Children's Literature, University of Cambridge)
Moderator: TBC
Children’s literature is an increasingly important strand of the publishing industry, and the study of such texts is becoming a well-established field of academic research. However, there have been comparatively few studies of translations of children’s literature, especially in Anglo-American culture where English versions of children’s books originally written in other languages have never been particularly numerous. Nonetheless, prompted in part by the burgeoning interest in world literature and the rise of multiculturalism, there has been an increasing demand for foreign children’s books. This in turn has resulted in a larger number of translations and a significant growth in academic scholarship (Oittinen 2000; O’Sullivan 2005; van Coillie and Verschueren 2006; Frank 2007; Gonzáles Davies and Oittinen, 2008; Lathey, 2006 and 2010; Di Giovanni, Elefante, and Pederzoli 2010). Georges Mounin (1964) regarded children’s books as perhaps the most challenging of all for a translator because of their hybrid voice (e.g., narrative, poetic, dramatic), the constraints imposed by visual elements, the oral dimension (e.g., baby talk, non-verbal language), the double readership they address (the children and the adults that select them), and other factors. These are all important questions that have started to receive the critical attention they deserve.
The panel discussion will offer an opportunity for academics and professional translators of children’s literature to assess current trends in the theory and practice of translating such works, and to explore the peculiar and distinctive challenges these texts present. -
Angel Gurría-Quintana (Translator and Literary Critic)Orri Tomasson (Teaching Associate in Modern Icelandic, University of Cambridge)In recent decades, as the study of translation has shifted from the search for ideal equivalence to a pervasive focus on difference, so literary writing and translation have increasingly been caught in a complex tangle of power asymmetries. From linguistic differences (e.g., high-prestige / low-prestige; national / regional; standard / non-standard) to culture contrasts (e.g., dominant / marginal; Eastern / Western; male / female), much scholarly attention has been devoted to understanding how writers and translators are necessarily implicated in the contentious ongoing process of determining the placement of various ‘centres’ and the location of their corresponding ‘peripheries’. While translation projects can certainly bolster prevailing hierarchies, they can also engender provocative instabilities, providing alternative perspectives by giving literary prominence to marginalised peoples, endangered languages, and disenfranchised communities. As Sergio Waisman has noted, ‘[t]ranslation […] has drastically different cultural political implications for writers in geopolitical margins than it does for those in geopolitical centres’ (Waisman 2005, 124). Prompted initially by seminal work in feminist translation (von Flotow 1991; Spivak 1993; Simon 1996) and postcolonial translation (Niranjana 1992; Bassnet & Trivedi 1999; Tymoczco 1999), recent studies have teased out the implications of hegemonic discourses on the creation and circulation of literature, and have increasingly broadened the scope of the debate (Liu 2000; Cronin 2003; Granqvist 2006; Hermans 2006; Baker 2007; Bassnett 2009; Orsini & Srivastava 2013). Topics that have received focused attention in recent years include the gender-conscious strategies of the ‘Canadian School’, the legacy of Spivak’s literalist approach to the translation of regional languages, the debate about whether translations from endangered languages help to preserve those tongues or merely hasten their demise, and the ways in which ‘Otherness’ is negotiated in translations from different cultural contexts.The workshop will provide an opportunity for the participants to share theoretical perspectives and methodological practices that are pertinent to the task of creating translations that necessarily involve some kind of periphery, whether linguistic, cultural, or socio-political.
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Georgina Collins (Lecturer in Translation Studies, University of Glasgow)Hephzibah Israel (Lecturer in Translation Studies, University of Edinburgh)Paul Russell (Professor of Celtic, University of Cambridge)In recent decades, as the study of translation has shifted from the search for ideal equivalence to a pervasive focus on difference, so literary writing and translation have increasingly been caught in a complex tangle of power asymmetries. From linguistic differences (e.g., high-prestige / low-prestige; national / regional; standard / non-standard) to culture contrasts (e.g., dominant / marginal; Eastern / Western; male / female), much scholarly attention has been devoted to understanding how writers and translators are necessarily implicated in the contentious ongoing process of determining the placement of various ‘centres’ and the location of their corresponding ‘peripheries’. While translation projects can certainly bolster prevailing hierarchies, they can also engender provocative instabilities, providing alternative perspectives by giving literary prominence to marginalised peoples, endangered languages, and disenfranchised communities. As Sergio Waisman has noted, ‘[t]ranslation […] has drastically different cultural political implications for writers in geopolitical margins than it does for those in geopolitical centres’ (Waisman 2005, 124). Prompted initially by seminal work in feminist translation (von Flotow 1991; Spivak 1993; Simon 1996) and postcolonial translation (Niranjana 1992; Bassnet & Trivedi 1999; Tymoczco 1999), recent studies have teased out the implications of hegemonic discourses on the creation and circulation of literature, and have increasingly broadened the scope of the debate (Liu 2000; Cronin 2003; Granqvist 2006; Hermans 2006; Baker 2007; Bassnett 2009; Orsini & Srivastava 2013). Topics that have received focused attention in recent years include the gender-conscious strategies of the ‘Canadian School’, the legacy of Spivak’s literalist approach to the translation of regional languages, the debate about whether translations from endangered languages help to preserve those tongues or merely hasten their demise, and the ways in which ‘Otherness’ is negotiated in translations from different cultural contexts.The panel discussion will provide an opportunity for a number of specialists to reflect upon the linguistic, cultural, and socio-political implications of translation ventures that are situated close to peripheries (of one kind or another).
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Duncan Large (Academic Director of the British Centre for Literary Translation, University of East Anglia)
Moderator: Nicole Robertson (UCL)
From the enquiry into the nature of meaning within analytical philosophy (Quine 1959; Davidson 1973) to the radical questioning of notions such as authorship and truth in the wake of post-structuralist discourses (Derrida 1982, 1998; de Man 1986; Eco 2004), philosophy has – at various points in history and in different traditions – engaged with translation in numerous ways. But beyond the explicit discussion of the problems and possibilities of translation, the impact of translation on the transmission of ideas is a fascinating field of enquiry in its own right. For Derrida, the whole edifice of Western philosophy rests upon the assumption of translatability, namely the belief that meaning can be detached from the forms of any particular language and transferred into a different linguistic code without loss. A project such as Cassin’s Dictionary of Untranslatables (2004) foregrounds the extent to which philosophical ideas both call for and resist translation.
Duncan Large is Academic Director of the British Centre for Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. He has published translations from German and French into English, and is joint General Editor of The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Stanford University Press). He has published two monographs, five edited collections and numerous articles on Nietzsche and other topics in modern German literature and thought, comparative literature and translation studies. -
David Charlston (Translator and Co-Editor of the Journal New Voices in Translation Studies)
Timothy Crane (Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy, University of Cambridge)
Danielle Sands (Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Culture, Royal Holloway)
Moderator: Angeles Carreres (University of Cambridge)
From the enquiry into the nature of meaning within analytical philosophy (Quine 1959; Davidson 1973) to the radical questioning of notions such as authorship and truth in the wake of post-structuralist discourses (Derrida 1982, 1998; de Man 1986; Eco 2004), philosophy has – at various points in history and in different traditions – engaged with translation in numerous ways. But beyond the explicit discussion of the problems and possibilities of translation, the impact of translation on the transmission of ideas is a fascinating field of enquiry in its own right. For Derrida, the whole edifice of Western philosophy rests upon the assumption of translatability, namely the belief that meaning can be detached from the forms of any particular language and transferred into a different linguistic code without loss. A project such as Cassin’s Dictionary of Untranslatables (2004) foregrounds the extent to which philosophical ideas both call for and resist translation.
The panel discussion will address questions concerning the impact translation can have on the development and transmission of philosophical ideas, the extent to which philosophy relies on translation for its very existence, and (conversely) the reciprocal influence philosophical theories have exerted over the theory and practice of translation. - Montre plus
