When Less Is More, or the Art of Choice: The Poetics of Atwood's "Surfacing" and Its Transfer in the Russian and Latvian Translations / Kad mazāk nozīmē vairāk jeb izvēles māksla: Atvudas romāna “Iznirstot” poētika un tās apstrāde krievu un latviešu valodas tulkojumos (in English) (SCOPUS) (original) (raw)
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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.
Bruxelles, Bern, Berlin: Peter Lang, pp.402, 2020
This essentially academic book and its author are daring companions of poetry translators in their dance on a rope while searching for the best solutions and shifting boundaries between the possible and impossible, and the insights have at least three main directions: first, the artistic and aesthetic nature of the activity, second, those specific skills which are necessary to complete the task, and, third, the pre-requisites of failure or acclaim. The artistic and complex nature of both poetry and its translation suggests the necessity of specific inclusive approaches though, whatever the technique, there always remain some blurred, inaccessible zones of inexplicable elements. The book aims at studying the linguistic aspects of poetry translation theories and practice in order to define the main theoretical principles of an integrated approach to poetry translation. Practical insights are based on an analysis of the translation of Joseph Brodsky’s poems into English and Latvian. While under way, we experience all the cause-effect aspects of poetic texts representing author’s intention both to express and to hide, to intensify/highlight and to disguise. At times, we really feel – similarly to poetry translators themselves – like investigators either in the complex networks of theoretical insights or in even more risky endeavours to discuss and outline the practical aspects of poetry translation. A balance of theoretical and practical aspects is one of the main features and main benefits of the study. A detailed analysis of Brodsky’s poetic and philosophical heritage is another contribution. A unique opportunity for the international audience to gain insights into the Western/Russian/Latvian approaches to poetry translation theories and practices by also observing their mutual impacts and interaction, provides more added value.
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 ...
Translators' Dilemmas in Translating Poetry
Studies in Linguistics, Culture and FLT, 2021
Abstract: 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 Gane Todorovski’s poetry have been fully aware of the poetic qualities of the original poems and have made every effort to preserve them in the translation, although some losses were practically unavoidable.
Translation as a Poetics Constituent
Translations of Slavic Literatures, 2020
| August Šenoa (1838-1881) is a central figure of the Croatian literature of the second half of the 19th century. He consistently implemented the ideas from his theoretical treatises in his literary opus and formulated his poetics of translation in accordance with his literary ideas. in that system Romance and Slavic literatures were thus given a special place, and on the stylistic-historical level, Šenoa advocated for the transitional period from Romanticism into Realism. The examples of Šenoa's translations of world literature into the Croatian language and the most recent translation of Šenoa into English reveal that in the adaptations the periphery and the centre, in the changeable relations of the economy of literature, draw near each other.
The Russian Literature in English Translations of the 20th Century: the Problem of Cultural Context
Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences
The article is dedicated to problems of the Russian literature translation into the English language, and, in particular, to the question of differences both in the content and forms transferring, which are caused by asymmetry within cross-cultural and cross-lingual communication. The author considers the reasons for loss of information which possesses special features of a fiction text, and in particular, of its esthetic, evaluational, emotive and expressive components. The difference between the Russian and English poetic traditions which in many cases explains the nature of transformation in translations of the 20th century is analyzed: when rhythmic and metric canon, sound imaginary, rhyme and other methods for the organization of artistic information in the poem are considered as something secondary, then the translated text seems to be a reproduction of lexis, i.e., in fact, poems are translated through prose or reconstructed with changes in original means of expression. As the result of such experiments, the Russian poetic text is translated with severe misrepresentations and does not create the whole concept of the original poetic idea. Such translations most drastically damage the works by such "musical poets" as Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelshtam. By analyzing the processes accompanying the translation, the author addresses to complications, coming from cultural components, i.e. from the necessity to take into consideration a wide cultural and historical context. Regarding this fact, the author also focuses on such a method of compensation for the lost meanings as translation notes and comments.
Russian Literaure in the 20 th Century English Translations the Problem of Cultural Context
2016
The article is dedicated to problems of the Russian literature translation into the English language, and, in particular, to the question of differences both in the content and forms transferring, which are caused by asymmetry within cross-cultural and cross-lingual communication. The author considers the reasons for loss of information which possesses special features of a fiction text, and in particular, of its esthetic, evaluational, emotive and expressive components. The difference between the Russian and English poetic traditions which in many cases explains the nature of transformation in translations of the 20th century is analyzed: when rhythmic and metric canon, sound imaginary, rhyme and other methods for the organization of artistic information in the poem are considered as something secondary, then the translated text seems to be a reproduction of lexis, i.e., in fact, poems are translated through prose or reconstructed with changes in original means of expression. As th...
Translations as Icebergs, Translators as Navigators: a Poetic Case Study
Porównania, 2020
Following the iceberg model of culture, the present study offers a view of a poetic text and its translations as the tips of cultural-linguistic icebergs. This assigns to the translator the task of navigating the meanders of the source and target languages as well as diving below the surface of words. This thesis is exemplified by an analysis of English translations of Wisława Szymborska’s poem Rozmowa z kamieniem with its keyword kamień and its underlying cultural-linguistic foundations, supported by the concept of linguistic worldview. Hopefully, in this framework the human factor in translation still is, and will always be, irreplaceable.
Translation, style and poetics
The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture, 2018
Literature, as an art of language or artistic language construction, is characterised by a series of peculiarities which distinguish it from other forms of linguistic communication, shaping the texts which materialise as linguistic objects where special attention is paid to language, both in terms of its production and reception. The translation of literature will consequently involve ensuring that the target text, i.e. the text written in the target language, which is also referred to as 'text-translation,' maintains as much as possible the linguistic characteristics of the source text, i.e. the text written in the source language, that which is being translated. The transfer of such literary features becomes essential for the translation of a literary text to remain a literary text, one showing the features, characteristics or peculiarities thanks to which it will be received and valued as having that status. Translation and, of course, literary translation have no doubt an essential textual dimension since translators have the idea that they are translating texts, not only sentences, and consequently they achieve the translation of each sentence or each paragraph as a part of an upper linguistic unit: the