Gwendolyn Moore: The ‘Ordinary’ Translator as Cultural Intermediary (original) (raw)
Related papers
TranscUlturAl: A Journal of Translation and Cultural Studies, 2019
Her research interests include gender issues in translation, transnational feminism in translation studies, political and ideological aspects of translation, and cultural diplomacy. Dr. von Flotow was interviewed by Anna Antonova, a third-year PhD student at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta. Anna Antonova: Thank you for meeting with me, Dr. von Flotow. The first thing I wanted to ask you about is how did your interest in translation start? What was the most memorable thing that started it off for you, as a translator and an academic? Luise von Flotow: Well, it developed over time. And I think it started from growing up in a bilingual situation. It was stimulating for me as a child to speak German at home, and English at school, and to have to reconcile those two languages, but also cultures, which were very far apart in the 1950s. My actual work in literary translation did not start until I was back in Canada after living abroad and finishing my undergraduate studies. When I returned, I got into Canadian literature studies, and I saw translation as a real option to become involved in literary activities. At the time, I had small children, and translation was the one thing I could do on the side, in my free time, that did not require me hiring a babysitter. It was something I could do while my children were sleeping. Plus, I was also getting back into French, which I had studied as an undergrad but had to neglect as a young mother. Getting back into French meant studying Quebec. I participated in a six-week summer language course at one of the universities, and developed a real interest in contemporary Quebec writing, which at the time, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, had a strong feminist component. For me as a young mom stuck at home with four kids, this was pretty inspirational. And that was what I translated. AA: Were those translations from French into English? LF: Yes. My first two translations were published in the Canadian Fiction Magazine. It was just bringing out a special issue on contemporary Quebec writing entitled A Decade of Quebec Fiction.
The Case for Local Specificities: Francophone and Anglophone Literary Translators in Canada
2006
The focus of this article is the changing role of Anglophone and Francophone literary translators as cultural mediators in Canada since the 1960s. Using a comparative model sensitive to both differences and similarities, I will offer an overview of literary translation in Canada during this period. Drawing from my introductions to two recent edited volumes of portraits of individual Canadian translators, I will examine how translators from both cultures became the purveyors and advocates of their cultural “other”, and within what intercultural traditions they inscribe their own practice. Special attention will be paid to the role these translators have assumed as cultural and literary agents within each literary institution. In more general terms, this analysis from the perspective of translators as cultural agents will provide insights into how English and Frenchlanguage literary translation in Canada has worked towards building local specificities during a period of global cultura...
Writing-Translating (from) the In-Between: An Interview with Gail Scott
Studies in Canadian Literature-etudes En Litterature Canadienne, 2006
While Gail Scott is well known in Canadian and American avant-garde literary circles as a writer of experimental novels, short stories, and essays, she is perhaps less well known as a literary translator of Quebec fiction. Since 1998, Scott has published four literary translations of works by contemporary Quebec authors whose writing reflects many of her own aesthetic concerns: Laurence by France Theoret (1998), The Sailor's Disquiet by Michael Delisle (2002), Helen with a Secret , also by Michael Delisle (2002), and Mile End by Lise Tremblay (2002). Although she has often addressed, in her essays and interviews, the importance of writing "in translation" when one lives at a linguistic and cultural crossroads, Scott has been less explicit about her work as a translator. This is the first interview in which she reflects on her conception of literary translation, as well as on the function, strategies, and liberties of the English language translator, notably in the cont...
2021
The current dissertation is not only concerned with nourishing the Feminist Translation Studies field with an interdisciplinary perspective into Feminist Translator History. It strives for an understanding of Translation Studies, and Feminist Translation Studies in this particular case, as a cross-disciplinary space where the aims of various disciplines may converge (see Castro 2012). In the particular space of Feminist Translation/Translator History, and in line with Rundle's proposed synergies between Translation Studies and History (2014), the limitations of the so-called "discursive turn" in Feminist History" (Canning 1994) which, despite showing interest in how ideologies operate via historiographical discourse, is insufficiently familiar with the variety of Critical Discourse Analysis methodologies at our disposal (see Castro 2009). In this sense, the current thesis intends to be useful to feminist scholars across disciplines in their search for more fruitfu...
Documents and Tools: “French-English Translation in Canada,” by Maynard Gertler
2023
French-English Translation in Canada" is the transcript of a talk given by Montreal publisher Maynard Gertler to an unidentified audience in 1976. When Gertler founded Harvest House in 1959, his aim was to issue the first English-language translations of the works of Québécois writers in inexpensive, accessible editions. The talk is a document of enduring value that provides incisive analysis of contemporary Canadian publishing and presents the challenges facing a domestic publisher who was committed to issuing French works in English translation. Résumé « French-English Translation in Canada » est la transcription d'une conférence donnée par l'éditeur montréalais Maynard Gertler à un public non identifié en 1976. Lorsque Gertler a fondé Harvest House en 1959, son but était de publier les premières traductions anglaises des oeuvres d'auteur•e•s québécois•e•s en éditions accessibles et peu coûteuses. La transcription de cette conférence est un document de valeur durable qui offre une analyse tranchante de l'édition canadienne contemporaine et présente les défis auxquels un éditeur national engagé à la publication d'oeuvres françaises traduites en anglais était confronté à l'époque.
“French-English Translation in Canada” by Maynard Gertler
Papers of The Bibliographical Society of Canada, 2021
French-English Translation in Canada" is the transcript of a talk given by Montreal publisher Maynard Gertler to an unidentified audience in 1976. When Gertler founded Harvest House in 1959, his aim was to issue the first English-language translations of the works of Québécois writers in inexpensive, accessible editions. The talk is a document of enduring value that provides incisive analysis of contemporary Canadian publishing and presents the challenges facing a domestic publisher who was committed to issuing French works in English translation. Résumé « French-English Translation in Canada » est la transcription d'une conférence donnée par l'éditeur montréalais Maynard Gertler à un public non identifié en 1976. Lorsque Gertler a fondé Harvest House en 1959, son but était de publier les premières traductions anglaises des oeuvres d'auteur•e•s québécois•e•s en éditions accessibles et peu coûteuses. La transcription de cette conférence est un document de valeur durable qui offre une analyse tranchante de l'édition canadienne contemporaine et présente les défis auxquels un éditeur national engagé à la publication d'oeuvres françaises traduites en anglais était confronté à l'époque.
Of Her Own Volition: Barbara Godard as a Case Study of the Translator's Agency
Critic, translator, editor, and academic, Barbara Godard marked the landscape of Canadian literature as one of the leaders in theories of feminist translation. Her devotion to the feminist cause, and her presence on the literary and theoretical scenes in Canada and abroad helped bring translation to the forefront of theoretical discourse, and “contributed to the recognition of translation as a vital literary activity and theoretical site” (Mezei “Transformations" 205). Refusing to practice self-effacement in her translation work, Godard shows a tendency to flaunt her signature, leaving creative ‘tracks’ for the attentive reader to follow in the text. In doing so, she deliberately and complicitly works with the source, actively participating in the creation of meaning. The implication of a complicit understanding of the motivations behind the original are evoked in the urge to translate more than just text, but rather, meaning. An examination of her ‘position traductive’ offers helpful insights on her politics of translation, and allows an understanding of the impetus that led her to focus her writings in the sphere of feminist translations, layering the existing criticism on the notions of creativity and authorship as they pertain to translators. This paper will explore Godard’s oeuvre and her individual position toward translation criticism and practices, and will seek to etch out her ideological and critical landscape through the analysis of her translations, and through her own articulations of her process.
The Translator
This conversation, which took place in the summer of 2020, traces 25 years of publishing The Translator, from its inception and early days, to its establishment as a leading international publication in the field of Translation Studies, to the move from St Jerome to Routledge in 2014. We invited three scholars who have played different roles in the history of the journal and who are all part of its 'historical memory': Mona Baker, founding editor of both The Translator and the St Jerome publishing house, Moira Inghilleri, who was reviews editor and, later, co-editor and also guest edited two thematic issues, and Dirk Delabastita, the guest editor of the very first special issue of the journal, devoted to 'Wordplay and Translation', in 1996. Our questions and their answers take us through a quarter of a century of scholarship, publishing and personal memories.