Translating in a constrained environment

Babel ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Rędzioch-Korkuz
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Cultural Adaptation ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Systemic Analysis ◽  
Vantage Points ◽  
Text Language ◽  
Point Of Departure

Abstract Translating children’s literature has been an object of interest researched from a number of vantage points, including the question of constraining factors. Scholars have highlighted mainly the question of dual readership or cultural adaptation, frequently without a global and systemic analysis of all impediments. This article examines the Polish translation of the German book for children, Katharina von der Gathen’s Klär mich auf, from a constraint-based framework. This article focuses on the reconstruction of the constraints in the translation process: the point of departure is the framework with three basic factors that constrain translation, i.e., the intention of the author/translator, text type, and the profile of the audience. The presented argumentation incorporates other formal impediments, such as the visual layer of the book and the semiotic make-up of the source text, language taboo and censorship or the literary polysystems. The analysis of the constraint framework helps to comprehend the translation in terms of the ST-TT relationship regarding their intended audiences, genre-related features, and the child-adult duality.

scholarly journals Kamil Kilani’s Adaptation of Shakespeare in Arabic Children’s Literature: Acculturation Versus Enculturation

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1636-1646
Author(s):  
Lamis Ismail Omar
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Cultural Adaptation ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Conceptual Content ◽  
Educational Levels ◽  
Arduous Task ◽  
Cultural Content

Children’s literature is a young literary genre which is guided by a complex set of motivational, cognitive and metacognitive considerations. In the Arab world, children’s literature emerged in tandem with the modern translation movement but has started to prosper as an independent literary form only recently. Translating for children is an arduous task with myriad challenges on the linguistic, sociocultural and educational levels. This paper aims to research Kamil Kilani’s Arabic adaptation of King Lear as a model to translate for children. Kilani’s translations are significant because they are adapted in a way which responds to the needs of children without simplifying the lexical and stylistic components of the source texts or compromising their cultural content. The paper adopts a descriptive methodology supporting the main argument with comparative examples from the source text and the target text. The analysis shows that Kilani’s adaptation revolutionized the source text’s form and structure, while preserving its conceptual content, language level and style exquisitely. The results suggest that translating for children does not have to embrace cultural adaptation strategies and can instead embrace a model of acculturation between the source text cultural content and the target text readers.

Translating children’s stories from Chinese to English

Babel ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 506-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Li
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Functional Approach ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Modal Particles ◽  
Language Structure ◽  
Children's Stories ◽  
Contemporary Chinese

Translation, according to the German functional approach to Translation Studies, is a purpose-driven interaction that involves many players. Translating children’s stories is no exception. Using her personal experience of translating Mr. Wolf’s Hotline, a book comprising 47 Chinese children’s stories by Wang Yizhen, a contemporary Chinese writer , in light of the Skopos and text-type theories of functional approach in particular, the author has outlined the strategies and methods adopted in her translations in terms of language, structure and culture. With child readers in mind during the translation process, the translator has used rhetorical devices, onomatopoeic words, modal particles, and also changed some of the sentence structures of the stories, such as from indirect sentences into direct quotations, and from declarative sentences into questions. In terms of culture, three aspects, namely, the culture-loaded images, the names of the characters and nursery rhymes are singled out for detailed analyses. Though marginalized, ‘children’s literature is more complex than it seems, even more complex’ (Hunt 2010: 1), and translation of children’s literature is definitely challenging. This paper outlines the strategies and methods the author has adopted in translating some children's stories from Chinese to English.

scholarly journals Oswajanie obcości kulturowej w przekładzie literatury dziecięcej. Przypadek Domowych duchów Dubravki Ugrešić

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Ślawska
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Translation Strategies

The Domestication of Cultural Strangeness in the Translation of Children's Literature: The case of Dubravka Ugrešić's Kućni duhovi [Home Ghosts]This article is devoted to the Polish translation of Kućni duhovi [Home Ghosts], a collection of short stories by Dubravka Ugrešić, her only book addressed to the youngest readers which has been published outside Croatia. The study focuses on the issue of cultural strangeness generated mostly by proper names that appear in the stories: ghosts' names, and the names and surnames of other characters. In her translation, Dorota Jovanka Ćirlić domesticated the source text, replacing all of them with Polish equivalents. The comparative analysis presented in this article considers translation strategies she used and illustrates them with numerous examples. Oswajanie obcości kulturowej w przekładzie literatury dziecięcej. Przypadek Domowych duchów Dubravki UgrešićNiniejszy artykuł poświęcony jest przekładowi na język polski zbioru opowiadań Dubravki Ugrešić pt. Domowe duchy. Jest to jedyna książka pisarki adresowana do najmłodszych czytelników, która ukazała się poza granicami Chorwacji. Szczególna uwaga skierowana została na kwestię obcości kulturowej, którą w książce Ugrešić generują przede wszystkim nazwy własne (nazwy duchów, imiona i nazwiska pozostałych bohaterów). Dorota Jovanka Ćirlić, autorka przekładu, dokonała udomowienia tekstu źródłowego, zastępując wszystkie nazwy własne, pojawiające się w oryginale, polskimi ekwiwalentami. Zastosowane przez tłumaczkę strategie translatorskie zostały omówione oraz zilustrowane licznymi przykładami w toku analizy porównawczej.

scholarly journals Authenticity and Imitation in Translating Exposition: A Corpus-Based Study

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 191
Author(s):  
Ramadan Ahmed Elmgrab
Keyword(s):  
Expository Text ◽  
Linguistic Competence ◽  
Degree Of Freedom ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Linguistic Structure ◽  
Arabic Translation ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Error Distributions ◽  
Translation Errors

<p>Many Western scholars such as Dryden show little interest in imitations, and express their preference for translations, i.e. paraphrases that are faithful to the sense of the source text. However, they consider imitations as a viable category of translation. It is the degree of freedom, or departure from the original, that differentiates a translation from an imitation. This paper is concerned with issues that are central to the understanding of English-Arabic translation errors when rendering expository text. Not surprisingly, when translating exposition, errors recur especially those relating to the linguistic competence of the students. But not all errors were the same neither was their distribution. Each text-type shows different idiosyncrasies and error distributions which indicate that performance in translation depends largely on the type of text and the rhetorical purposes as well as patterns which follow from the source text. To this end, an error corpus of linguistic structure was collected from the translation project of students majoring in translation. Syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and discoursal criteria were used to judge imitation and authenticity strategies adopted by the students during the translation process. Implications for increasing students’ awareness of the pragmatic and syntactic constraints in translating structures will also be provided.<strong> </strong></p>

Text-Functions in Translation

Target ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christiane Nord
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Target Culture ◽  
Point Of Departure

Abstract As a text-type in their own right, titles and headings are intended to achieve six functions: distinctive, metatextual, phatic, referential, expressive, and appellative. Taking as a point of departure the hypothesis that translated texts have to "function" in the target situation for which they are produced by serving the purpose(s) they are intended for (which may or may not be the "same" as those of the source text), it is argued that the translator has to reconcile the conditions of functionality prevailing in the target culture with the communicative intentions of the source-title sender (= functionality + loyalty). The discussion of several examples from an extensive corpus of German, French, English, and Spanish titles and their translations shows how this methodological approach can be put into practice, establishing a model for the functional translation of other texts and text-types.

scholarly journals PECULIARITIES OF TRANSLATING CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (11(79)) ◽  
pp. 64-67
Author(s):  
Nataliya Hryciv ◽  
Roksolana Syndeha
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Text Message ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Children's Book ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Functionalist Approach ◽  
Target Culture

The article focuses on the analysis of children’s literature translation. The definition of children’s literature is researched in the article, taking into account its purpose, audience and content, which makes it an interesting subject for studying. The function of the translated text in the target culture may also differ from the one intended by the author. The current study will take into account all of the mentioned factors (purpose, audience and content), taking a functionalist approach to the analysis. While translating children’s literature, the translator is not only the mediator between two systems of language and culture, but he also becomes the second writer of the work. Not only he is to transfer the meaning of the ST (source text) message, but also make it comprehensible for the target audience, which, thus, makes him bear in mind all the features of children’s book.. In the article the special attention is paid to the techniques of translating and its specific issues. The main approaches of translating for children and the features of children’s literature have been also researched.

Follow the Child, Follow the Books – Cross-Disciplinary Approaches to a Child-Centred History of Danish Children's Literature 1790–1850

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-212
Author(s):  
Charlotte Appel ◽  
Nina Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Book History ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Book Market ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Point Of Departure

In this article we present the cross-disciplinary methodology of a project on Danish children's literature 1790–1850 that has the child as the point of departure. The project focuses on three contexts in which children and adults interact with books: the home, the school and the book market. Theoretical inspirations have been drawn from book history, children's literature studies and childhood studies, including the concept of agency. A major database maps Danish books aimed at children 1750–1850, making it possible to trace the popularity of titles through reprints and new editions and to follow specific actors (authors, illustrators, printers and so on). Ego-documents by children – for example, letters written by Ida Thiele (1830–1862) – are analysed as sources of information on children's own experiences with books, their use of different media and their interaction with peers, relatives and teachers in relation to reading and books. Finally, we demonstrate how significant changes in form, content and the materiality of books for children can be captured, when following specific books such as E. Munthe's books on history and geography around the communication circuit. The article concludes that a combination of different cross-disciplinary methodologies is essential in a history of children's literature with children at its centre.

scholarly journals Multilingual humour in audiovisual translation

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 209-220
Author(s):  
Noelia Marqués Cobeta
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Ethnic Communities ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Modern Family ◽  
Audiovisual Translation ◽  
Text Language

This commentary aims to take up the gauntlet thrown down by Dore (2019) with her article about multilingual humour in the Italian dubbed version of the series Modern Family. She suggested that the scenes included in the article could be analysed in other languages, so it was an interesting proposal to carry out the analysis of the Spanish dubbed version, since the L2 in the source text coincides with the target text language. Thus, this fact makes the translation process an arduous activity in these language combinations. Multilingualism is therefore considered the central element in this study. It is a reflection of the current social movement and the increase of multi-ethnic communities worldwide. This fact leads to citizens who use their knowledge to assert their own identity; as a consequence, audiovisual producers are also aware of this situation and exploit this phenomenon. Modern Family is an example of this reality and introduces characters, like Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, as a role model to show an increasingly common tendency, the use of multilingual and multi-ethnic characters that reflect this new social situation. Thanks to the selected examples, we will see whether the use of multilingualism as a source of humour is also transmitted to the Spanish dubbed version, as it did in the Italian dubbed version studied by the abovementioned scholar.

Faithfulness in translation of children’s literature

Babel ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-299
Author(s):  
Virginia Kwok
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Linguistic Development ◽  
Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn ◽  
Reader Reception ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Linguistic Level

Faithfulness as a principle of translation has been upheld for a long time despite many debates among scholars in the field. In the context of translating children’s literature, this poses further challenges and recent studies have yet to reach a conclusion (Epstein 2012; Nikolajeva 2011; Henitiuk 2011; Kruger 2011; Emery 2004; Dai 2001; Hervey 1997). In this article, from the sociological perspective, I shall discuss this issue by examining Klingberg (1986)’s approach of being faithful to the source text and Oittinen (1993)’s strategy of being faithful to the readers respectively. A study of Chinese translations of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for children readers will be looked at. Methods of dialogical approach: purification, simplification, rewording and modernization will be compared with equivalence method to find out which one offers a better reader reception. I argued that having an orientation and purpose of translation with a dialogical view will benefit readers more than simply adhering to the original without deviation at linguistic level. The reasons are that the target text will be more comprehensible for children readers’ stage of cognitive and psychological development, life experience, knowledge, cultural tolerance and linguistic development in reading gems of foreign literature in translation.

scholarly journals Pottering Around: Harry Potter in Translation

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Penrod
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Harry Potter ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Proper Nouns ◽  
Sales Success

By May of 2008 worldwide sales of Harry Potter books hovered around the 400 million mark, making these texts the most widely-read works of children’s literature in history. To date the books have been translated into 67 languages. Given the particular translation issues involved in the translation of these highly imaginary English texts (culture, rhymes, anagrams, acronyms, invented words, proper nouns and names, among many others) combined with the series’s incredibly lucrative sales success, it is not surprising that the international translation process has become highly competitive as well as highly problematic. Unauthorized or pirate translations, fake translations, Americanization as translation—all of these lead us to a basic questioning of the role of the translator and just how much of an impersonator s/he is required to be by the task of translation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document