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Translation Right or Wrong - Abstracts of SATURDAY MORNING papers

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, FRIDAY 6th & SATURDAY 7th MARCH 2009
Organizers: The Trinity College Dublin Translation Studies Group
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SATURDAY 7 MARCH 2009 - MORNING

Translating for Children 1 - 9.30 am, Room 3051

B.J. Epstein: Swansea University bj@awaywithwords.se
Protecting Children: Changing Trends in Translating Children's Literature

Are there right and wrong strategies for translation? Do ideas of right and wrong change over time? And how does this affect the translation of children's literature?
In this paper, I will analyse 13 translations to Swedish of Lewis Carroll's two Alice books and 15 translations to Swedish of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with an emphasis on historical comparisons. The goal is to discover how translators seem to think differently in various periods of time about translating for children and then to analyse why that might be. My research has suggested that the 1940s through the 1970s was a time of very different translatorial strategies in regard to the translation of children's literature in Sweden and I believe this stems from changing ideas about childhood, children, and what is appropriate, useful, and right for young readers.

Emer Delaney: TCD delanee@tcd.ie
Bowdlerisation as translation: Problems of ‘political correctness', insults and profanity in the translation and revision of children's literature.

I propose to examine two related areas in which the bowdlerisation of children's literature can be seen as a form of translation: firstly, and more obviously, the censorship that may occur in interlingual translation; and, secondly, the excision or alteration, during the revision of existing versions of texts, of material deemed unsuitable – a process that can be viewed as intralingual translation. The works referred to will range from picture books (Jean de Brunhoff's Babar the Elephant and Hergé's Tintin in the Congo , for example) through books typically placed on the shelves of the under-12s (e.g. Richmal Crompton's William series) to books more often described as ‘young adult' (Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials ) or originally written as adult books (Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn ). Drawing on many examples and using a multidisciplinary approach, I will attempt to describe and predict both some effects of such bowdlerisation on individual readers' responses to texts, and some broader social consequences of the phenomenon.

Giorgia Carta: University of Warwick g.carta@warwick.ac.uk
Children's Literature in Translation: The Detection of Norms and Taboos

In children's literature the distinction between norms and taboos is blurred due to many reasons. Literary and aesthetic objectives have never been separated from pedagogical and social concerns, and a great variety of people and institutions have always been involved in the creation, control and direction of this body of literature. Furthermore, literature for children has become an increasingly profitable sector of the publishing scene leading to a heightened interest in it as a distinct market. This has brought to a situation in which each party concerned with books for children looks at them from its own very specific perspective and inevitably seeks to impose its own set of norms and taboos.
This paper represents an attempt to detect some of the norms/taboos governing children's literature in translation in the target cultural system. The analysis will consist of two stages: firstly, the identification of those elements regarded as able to account for the behaviour of norms and taboos; secondly, their contextualization. E xtratextual products will serve as a medium through which norms and taboos may be accurately observed and interpreted, and Italian children's literature will provide the specific national context. The extratextual elements taken into consideration are of two kinds: objective (data on publishing) and subjective (publishers', translators' and critics' statements). The main objective sought is to shed light on the norms and taboos that have governed Italian children's literature and its translation in the present and at some particular moments of the past.

Literature 1 9.30 am, Room 4047
SESSION CONCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS; REMAINING PAPER REASSIGNED TO “THEORY” SESSION

Theory - 9.30 am, Room 5033

Luise von Flotow: University of Ottawa lvonflotow@gmail.com
‘This time ‘the translation is beautiful, smooth and true.' Theorizing Re-Translation with the Help of Beauvoir

Beauvoir is currently being re-translated into English, approximately 50 years after much of her work appeared. The claims made about these re-translations, undertaken after substantial feminist and other criticism of her texts in English, repeat the usual idea that this time the translation will provide ‘access to Beauvoir herself,' long obscured by poor translations. Or that these versions of her work will be ‘beautiful, smooth and true.'
 My paper will engage with these claims, and explore two current and gendered ideas about re-translation that may relax such claims that the re-translation is inevitably an improvement of a text. The figure of Pandora, discussed and adapted by Karin Littau (2000) to theorize translation as an endless, serial activity will be useful as will the work of psychoanalyst Bracha Ettinger, and her theorizing of the matrice/metramorphics.

Maria del Pilar Ordoñez-Lopez: Universitat Jaume I mordonez@trad.uji.es
Judging the Translator

The cultural turn experienced in translation studies since the late eighties has implied an increasing recognition of the presence of the translator in the communication process. Authors such as Bassnett (1988, 1995, 1996) and Venuti (1995, 1998) have highlighted in their work the issue of the position held by translators in society, making reference to their low status. The lack of acknowledgement of the work and role of translators results in a series of social and professional attitudes such as the spread of misconceptions about what translation entails (Bassnett, 2004) and what being a translator implies. In order to overcome this situation, authors such as Bassnett (2004) have pointed out the need for those working in the field of translation to reinforce the importance of the translator's role. Despite these circumstances, paradoxically, there is a scarcity of literature directly and thoroughly targeting the analysis of the figure of the translator, apart from those cited above and a small number of others (Pym (1998), Leech (2005)).
It is therefore especially interesting to review Ortega y Gasset's conception of the figure of the translator, formulated in 1937 in his essay ‘The Misery and the Splendour of Translation. Ortega portrays the translator as ‘a shy character', who is ‘ruled by cowardice' and, as a result of this, is incapable of overcoming grammatical restraints, which places the author ‘in the prison of normal expression' (Ortega y Gasset, 1992: 94). This audacious portrait has given rise to a considerable degree of controversy amongst some of the most representative scholars in contemporary translation studies. Should Ortega's description of the translator be understood as a fierce critique? Is he judging the translator? Opposing interpretations, from diverse perspectives and schools of translation, have been proposed. Ortega's views on translation, however, suggest that an intention to ‘provoke' a response from translators, to urge them to them to abadon their invisibility, underlies in his controversial portrait.

Simona Rossi: TCD rossisi@tcd.ie
An Improving Strategy: Umberto Eco's translation of Exercices de Style by Raymond Queneau.

The paper looks closely at Umberto Eco's translation of Raymond Queneau's Exercices de Style . The central question of the paper is whether or not the translator is authorized to 'improve' or 'perfect' the original work (Right or Wrong?) — a strategy which Eco appears to adopt in his translation of the Exercices .
The paper moves from a general consideration of the concerns and implications of Queneau's peculiar book to an overview of Eco's translation strategy through the close analysis of a number of individual exercises. The aim of the paper is to raise questions: 'A perfecting strategy: Right or Wrong'? What happens when the original is considered badly written? Or when it contains mistakes? Should the translator respect the original imperfections?

Translating for Children 2 - 11.00 am, Room 3051

Caterina Sinibaldi: University of Warwick c.sinibaldi@warwick.ac.uk
Alice in Wonderland and Pinocchio : Contrastive Voices, Conflicting Childhoods.

This paper aims to explore the complex and often problematic relationship between translation and ideology, with special attention to the practice of translation under the Italian Fascist regime. Such an extreme political setting is particularly revealing about the constraints imposed on translation, and its close links with issues of patronage and censorship.
The research concentrates on translated children's literature, as a genre which offers a privileged perspective on the ideological aspects of translation. Texts for children both reflect dominant values of their time and bring with them an asymmetrical relation of power between producers (adults) and receivers (children); as a consequence, their notably ideological dimension is further complicated in translation. In the specific case of Fascist Italy, children's literature was mainly translated to fill a gap in the Italian literary polysystem, therefore its reception is revealing about the regime's ambiguous attitude towards translation.
  ‘Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll will be taken as a case-study, since this work was banned in 1938 after a Fascist conference on children's literature. Carroll's tale will be compared to a genuinely Italian classic for children, namely ‘Pinocchio'. While the latter was endlessly renewed through intralingual translations, many of which were aimed at celebrating different stages of the Fascist politics, the inherent nonsensical and subversive nature of ‘Alice' was judged impossible to domesticate. The 1935 Italian translation of Carroll's work, carried out by Benzi, will be examined in order to identify issues of decision-making and self-censorship related to the socio-cultural context of production. Such an analysis will effectively show that ‘Alice' incurred censorship because, as a celebration of childhood, it was at odd with the Fascist view on children as perspective citizens and soldiers to indoctrinate.
By exploring the special case of the translation of ‘Alice' under the Fascist regime, it is my aim to focus on the colliding norms of translating under a dictatorship and writing/translating for children, in order to show how in both cases ideological constraints prevail over commercial and aesthetic reasons.

Virginia Jewiss: Yale University virginia.jewiss@yale.edu
Hell for Kids: Translating Dante's Divine Comedy for Children

This paper takes a wide view of translation in its consideration of versions of Dante's Divine Comedy for children. While ‘junior' versions of Italy's most canonical text have long existed, several innovative treatments have been published recently which aim to animate the poem for very young readers. This paper will discuss the various approaches and strategies, including illustrations, used to bring such a complex philosophical, poetic, and theological work into the realm of children's literature. It will consider which aspects of the poem are distilled, amplified, or censored so as to appeal to a young audience, and how the distinctive language of the poet is transformed.
I will also offer my own version of Dante's poem as a case study: L'Avventura di Dante, una notte infernale was first composed in Italian, and at the request of the publisher, I then translated it into English, with the title Dante's Infernal Adventure . (The work will be published in both languages by Mandragora Press, with illustrations by Aline Cantono di Ceva.) Written in rhymed couplets, this version is unique even in the context of children's editions: it casts Dante as a young boy, thus constructing a strong parallel between reader and protagonist. As Dante scholar, writer, and translator, I will explore the particularities and problems of transforming and translating for children a work that bears the weight of a literary masterpiece and is deeply familiar to the parents who will be reading with their children.
If possible, I would like to show some illustrations from the texts.

Mette Rudvin: University of Bologna mette.rudvin@libero.it
Colonialism, Children's Literature and Translation: A comparative study of the text and illustrations of The Jungle Books translated from the English into Italian

This paper is a study of translations of Kipling's Jungle Books I and II from the English into Italian. The paper suggests that the translation of children's literature is managed and coordinated by the translator, illustrator and publisher to reflect current ideology in the source culture: It asks if and how the potent ‘colonial gaze' in Kipling's text – reflecting an array of various types of hierarchical and asymmetrical approaches – is reflected in translation, more specifically in a wide-ranging selection of abridged and unabridged Italian translations. The paper looks at how this particular ideological dimension in the source text is managed in translation, and how such attitudes and ideologies travel in translation: Are they softened or emphasized by translators and publishers? Do alterations depend on the translators' and publishers' individual idiosyncrasies, ideologies and preferences? And do they change over time as political attitudes and foreign policies change?
The paradox inherent in translations of this type and genre lies in the portrayal of a potent colonial and social (Victorian) message channelled through and towards a seemingly ‘innocent' genre and target readership. What makes this situation so challenging and perhaps provocative is that children's literature is such a powerful vehicle of social conditioning. Given the educational function and nature of books for children and their power to (dis?)educate and (mis?)inform, it is interesting to examine then how the asymmetrical relationships and the East-West image-making in texts written at the peak of the imperialist period maintain, these socio-political functions through time in a particular target environment. This is especially interesting in canonical works and/or authors that have become, through adaptations and various forms of rewriting, institutions in themselves decades or even a century later (for example Disney's adaptation of the Jungle Book).
The paper will also examine the illustrations in the Italian editions of The Jungle Books , comparing them with the semiotic and ideological elements found in the written text and the original illustrations.

 

Literature 2 - 11.10 am, Room 4047

Paul Rankin: UCD Paul.Rankin@ucd.ie
‘Translating homosexuality': the role of translation in the emerging schism in the Anglican Communion worldwide

Taking as its backdrop the growing split in the Anglican Communion between ‘traditionalists' who reject the acceptance of non-celibate gay clergy, and ‘liberals' who do accept such practice, this paper will argue that the role of translation is key to this debate.
It will use the principles of relevance theory to explore how traditional translations of terms related to same-sex practice in the Bible lead to simplified understandings of the issues involved, and of ideas in the biblical texts. It will argue that a fuller understanding of these ideas and questions would require consequent fuller understanding of the cultural background of the biblical text, but that this stands in direct conflict to the status of the Bible as sacred text in the eyes of its readers and wider culture, and to the complex questions of power and politics involved.

Carmen Mangiron: DCU carmen.mangiron@dcu.ie
The Five Lives of Botchan : a comparison of the English translations of Natsume S ō seki's classic

The novel Botchan (Natsume Sōseki, 1906) is considered a modern classic of Japanese literature and has been translated into several languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Catalan, Hungarian, Romanian and Bengali (Unesco's Index Traslationum). In the case of English, there are five translations, a remarkable figure for a Japanese literary classic. What are the reasons behind the existence of five different translations of the same original? What created the need for them? What are the main differences between them?
There is a story behind any translation, and sociocultural and extratextual factors play an important role in it. Factors such as time, place, cultural distance between the original and the target community, and literary and translation norms contribute to the decision to translate or retranslate a literary work. These factors also influence, overtly or covertly, the translator and his /her work.
This paper compares the five different English translations of Botchan (Morri, 1919; Sasaki, 1922; Turney, 1972; Cohn, 2005; Treyvaud, 2005) by analysing the sociocultural factors surrounding the translations and exploring how they affected the translation process and product. It also outlines the main differences between the five translations made over an eighty-six year period by two Japanese translators translating into English, a British professor of English Literature, an American professor of Japanese Literature and a young American writer and translator who set out to translate the novel in less than a month and published it in his online blog. Finally, the paper will also discuss how the different translations were received by the English-speaking community and which ones are considered better and why.

Natalia Olshanskaya: Kenyon College olshanskayan@kenyon.edu
De-Coding Intertextuality In Postmodern Narratives.

The degree of familiarity in the receiving culture with the specific context in which the source text was produced often programs its acceptance or rejection by the new (target) cultural environment. This becomes most obvious in translating literary works based on intertextuality, where meaning(s) can be reconstructed only through the understanding of the mosaic of quotations imbedded in the original.
Intertextuality is directly related to postmodern narratives, which use it as an essential artistic device. In postmodern poetics, intertextual references and quotations, stripped of their initial context, acquire a new, usually playful meaning. Postmodern narratives relativize previous discourses, play with contexts, mock canonical literary texts and well-known quotations. The dual nature of intertextual references, the combination of parody and travesty contribute to general difficulties encountered in the interpretation of translated postmodern works in receiving cultures.
In what way does translation of postmodern literature redefine the function of the translator?   Should the translator ‘help' the reader? What are the acceptable ways of providing this ‘help' and what are its limits and limitations? Does it change our understanding of translator's ‘invisibility'?   In my paper, I will address these general theoretical questions. My analysis will be based on the discussion of several recent translations of contemporary Russian literary works into English.

 

Language and Politics - 11.10 am, Room 5033

Ronald Puppo: Universitat de Vic rpuppo@uvic.cat
Prosodic reshuffling: Englishing Jacint Verdaguer

This paper examines prosodic issues arising in the translation into English of selected poems by the major literary figure of the nineteenth-century Catalan Renaixença, Jacint Verdaguer.* Several poems in translation will be examined in which prosodic elements are reshuffled and reconfigured into a new semantic, syntactic, rhetorical and rhythmic textual whole, altering both intratextual relationships within the poem and intertextual correspondences in the translating literary system. This small-language import is the result of the translator's attempt to ‘communicate to [English] readers the understanding of the foreign text that foreign [Catalan] readers have,' even though ‘this communication will always be partial' (Venuti). Moreover, to the extent that the translator has effectively re-created the form-content synthesis through prosodic reconfiguration, the translated text gives birth to new meanings and correspondences in the translating literary system. The text in translation, though not an entirely different one, is not the same poem. George Steiner has described translation as ‘an exact art,' which when most effective ‘bestows on the original that which was already there. ' Thus the translator must take care that the value of the imported product be preserved at an optimal rate of exchange in its new cultural and literary currency. In the light of the prosodic issues examined, we also catch a glimpse of Verdaguer in his unique role of poet-priest, his confrontation with Church authorities, and his enduring stature as Catalonia's national poet.
* Selected Poems of Jacint Verdaguer: A Bilingual Edition , ed. and trans. Ronald Puppo, with an introduction by Ramon Pinyol i Torrents (University of Chicago Press, 2007).

Renata Kamenická: Masaryk University, Brno kamenick@phil.muni.cz
Phillip Swallow, Morris Zapp – Czech and Slovak

The paper takes the situation concerning Czech and Slovak translations of novels by David Lodge to show how retranslations may operate under specific and dynamic conditions of a weak cultural and linguistic divide: the target-orientedness of the canonical Czech translation (1980) of Changing Places (1975), which used to serve both Czech and Slovak audiences for a number of years, is compared and contrasted with that of its much younger Slovak re/translation (2004). Setting the analysis in the context of other Czech and Slovak translations of David Lodge fiction, the descriptive case study considers factors of the changing sociocultural situation and translator habitus as well as factors of psychology of retranslation. Implications for the study of literary translation with respect to the Czech/Slovak sociocultural divide – as an example of a divide between close but distinct cultures – are suggested.
Lodge, D. Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses. London: Penguin Books, 1975.
Lodge, D. Hostující profesoři. Prague: Odeon, 1980. Translated by A. Přidal.
Lodge, D. Profesorská rošáda: príbeh z dvoch univerzít. Bratislava: Ikar, 2004. Translated by O. Kořínek.

Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar: University of Stirling sabine.dedenbach-salazarsaenz@stir.ac.uk
Muchay – The complex usage of a Quechua word in the colonial Andes

In 16th and 17th century colonial Peru Christian missionaries used the Amerindian Quechua language, which had been widely spread by the Incas as a general means of communication, for the catechisation of the indigenous population of the Andes. They produced a large number of Christian texts in Quechua, such as prayers, confessionaries, the catechism and sermons. At the same time the Church made intensive efforts to eradicate native Andean religion by persecuting native religious functionaries and destroying sacred objects. One Quechua word, muchay , whose basic meaning is 'to kiss', was used in native Andean religious discourse to express the concept of adoration. In the early colonial period it obtained different meanings. On the one hand, in the hispanised form mochar , it was applied to refer to the pagan act of idolatry. On the other, it entered the Christian vocabulary to denote the adoration of God and the Virgin. The paper will follow the development of these contrary meanings through several colonial Quechua and Spanish sources in order to show how Spanish missionary linguistics worked, and it will ask which effects this ambiguous usage might have had on the religious beliefs of the Andean population.

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Some light editing has been done on these abstracts, but they have not been reduced to a uniform style and length. Our keynote speakers were not asked to supply abstracts. We apologize for any errors in the editing, and for the possible loss of accented characters in some languages.

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The organizers gratefully acknowledge the support of ILE, the Ireland Literature Exchange.

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