Katena and Translations of Literary Masterpieces (original) (raw)
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Letonica, 2022
The paper contributes towards the discussions of Surfacing s poetics and of considerations related to the requirement of equivalent effect in literary (prose) translation, as both poetics and effect-related mechanisms have gained prominence in cognitive text linguistics and in the discourse on the respective translatological implications. The main areas of research in this paper include: (1) ‘literary text’ in the broadest conceptual meaning; (2) literariness and poeticity in light of translation; (3) the relationship of ex- plicit/implicit information in the source text (ST), which may be represented both in micro-level units and through their integration into the text’s macrostructure; (4) the respective means for transferring explicit/implicit information into the target text (TT) and the translator’s task of making balanced choices. This theoretical overview provides the context for an insight (though with an element of subjectivity) into the poetic features (including the underlying ‘forces,’ general tone, and atmosphere) of Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing (1972), an important 20th century novel; the paper is the first instance (to our best knowledge) of Atwood’s techniques’ being academically considered in the context of translation. These poetic features serve as an essential background and as a set of criteria for the next objective of this paper - an analysis of selected examples from the Latvian translation (translated by Silvija Brice) and Russian translation (translated by Inna Bernshteyn) that illustrate how even minor changes and additions, though acceptable in terms of their general literary features, may raise questions regarding translation quality given specific, poeticity-related requirements. The paper also seeks to provide insight into the applicability of a relatively literal (or close) prose translation.
Translating Literary Prose: Problems and Solutions
This article deals with the problems in translating literary prose and reveals some pertinent solutions and also concentrates on the need to expand the perimeters of Translation Studies. The translation courses offered at many universities in Bangladesh and overseas treat the subject mostly as an outcome of Applied Linguistics. Presently, the teachers and students of translation are confused at the mounting impenetrability of the books and articles that flood the market. Unfortunately, the translators lay more emphasis on the translation of poetry; there should be more research regarding the particular problems of translating literary prose. One explanation of this could be the fact that the status of poetry is considered higher, but it is more possibly due to the notable flawed notion that the novels, essays, fiction etc. possess a simple structure compared to that of a poem and is thus easier to translate. However, many debates have been organised over when to translate, when to apply the close local equivalent, when to invent a new word by translating clearly, and when to copy. Simultaneously, the "untranslatable" cultural-bound words and phrases have been continuously fascinating the prose-translators and translation theorists. The plea made in this article is to admit the fact that there is a lot to be learnt from shaping the criteria for undertaking a prose-translation and we should appreciate the hard work, difficulties, or frustration of the 'translators' (go-betweens) in the creation of good sense of the texts. 98 contradictory that the translator should be "visible" and make use of "foreignising" attributes simultaneously, as foreignising attributes, at any rate in the Schleiermacher tradition, were chiefly initiated into the Target Text (T.T) from the Source Text (S.T), not by the translator's innovation.
Literary Translation Problems and Features of the Literary Text
2021
This article is devoted to the problem of translating literary text. The article analyzes the opinions of foreign scientists, who define each translation, including the artistic one, as a recreation of a work created in one language by means of another language. This raises the question of the accuracy, completeness and adequacy of literary translation.
(Mis)translation as a Literary Success
Przekłady Literatur Słowiańskich, 2020
Both of the concepts — mistranslation and literary success — are far from being clear and unambiguous, which leads to various limitations on the one hand, but also to potentially beneficial new readings on the other. Moreover, the difference between a translation and a mistranslation is not an easy one to assess (particularly when poetry is concerned) just like any literary success is difficult to measure. Apart from evidence such as reception, we are left mostly with aesthetic criteria when assessing a literary success and, to some extent, also the successfulness of any translation. In order to discuss such unclear but deeply intertwined issues, I look into three matters. Firstly, I draw attention to two undeniable examples of both mistranslation and literary success to point out possible (and impossible) criteria of both phenomena. Secondly, I proceed to a particular case of a (mis)translation and literary success (Auden’s version of Mickiewicz’s “Romantyczność”), to shed some more light on the issues in question. In the end, I confront the case with another seemingly similar one (Bassnett & Kuhiwczak’s rendition of Szymborska’s “Dzieci epoki”), yet resulting in a different outcome. At the end I point out where, in my opinion, lies a difference in assessing a particular (mis)translation and its literary success.
2021
This paper deals with different methods and approaches in translating Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire and shows relevant elements of poetry translation through a detailed comparative analysis of the versions of three Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian translators. The author presents difficulties in transferring certain poetic figures due to syntactic and phonetic differences in languages. In each chapter, the author analyzes different elements (extralinguistic, semantic, and of conveying the right tone). The work shows advantages and disadvantages of each of the analyzed elements, especially if a translator chooses to neglect all the others for the sake of keeping only one. The author suggests that for translating Baudelaire, one needs to have a specific sensibility and imagination, but should also be theoretically acquainted with Baudelaire's poetics.
Translators’ dilemmas in translating poetry: The case of Gane Todorovski’s poetry in English
2021
Poetry translation is considered the most challenging type of translation. Translators are faced with many dilemmas as they work on several different levels simultaneously in an attempt to preserve in the target language as many features of a particular poem as possible. This is not an easily achievable aim, especially, if the poems are products of a poetic mastermind who skilfully juggled with a range of poetic features. The study at hand aims to analyse the treatment that the poetry of one such poetic genius, Gane Todorovski, received when rendered from Macedonian into English. More precisely, given the profound differences between Macedonian and English, the study investigates how specific poetic features such as rhyme, rhythm, sound, tropes, word choice and word order have been handled in the translation. It also tries to provide answers to several common translators’ dilemmas that obligatorily emerge in the process of poetry translation. The study shows that the translators of ...
Studies in Polish Linguistics, 2017
Th e article refers briefl y to the development, over the last half-century, of the sub-discipline of literary linguistics called literary semantics in anglophone tradition (mostly British), pointing out its roots in other scholarly paradigms (among others Russian formalism and the Moscow-Tartu school of semiotics) and its close connection with cognitive poetics. Th e author mentions also a development of studies on artistic language in contemporary Polish linguistic theorizing. Conceived by Trevor Eaton as a broad linguistic approach to literary texts, interdisciplinary in nature, literary semantics-in a natural way-enters into dialogue with translation studies in the area of research called comparative stylistics. Th e author discusses the notion of semantic dominant, introduced into linguistics by Roman Jakobson in 1976 and into the Polish critical theory of translation by Stanisław Barańczak (2004) to designate the most salient element of the poem's complex structure, acting as a clue to its interpretation and translation. Th e examples provided by Barańczak, voiced as metalinguistic comments on the construal of his own translations of selected English poems as well as critical evaluation of other translators' output, lead us to the conclusion that the concept of semantic dominant should be renamed stylistic dominant, the term that better refl ects a peculiar characteristic of a multi-level and oft en multimodal nature of meaning in poetic texts (plurisignation, aft er Wheelwright 1954/1968). What is more, we should talk about sets of stylistic dominants (rather than their single occurrences) that act as keys to complex semantics of poetry. An important dominant remains fi guration (troping in particular) but the orchestration of the poem (the totality of its phonetics and versifi cation) and oft en its graphic layout are of no less import in meaning construction.