Unsafe at any speed? Some unfinished reflections on the ‘cultural turn’ in translation studies

2007 ◽  
pp. 73-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajendra Singh
Keyword(s):  
Translation Studies ◽  
Cultural Turn

Translating the gay identity in audiovisual media

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-225
Author(s):  
Antonio Jesús Martínez Pleguezuelos
Keyword(s):  
Translation Studies ◽  
Original Version ◽  
Gay Identity ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Audiovisual Media ◽  
Audiovisual Translation ◽  
Cultural Turn

Abstract In this study we analyse different linguistic elements in the TV series Will & Grace that shape the gay identity of the main characters of the show. We will base the analysis on the inclusion of the cultural turn into the field of audiovisual translation studies and on the technical time and space constraints that may emerge when conveying the message in this type of texts. Therefore, we will focus on the treatment of cultural references associated to the LGBTQI community that are shown on the series, as well as the linguistic variant of gayspeak and the comic elements included in the dialogues in order to observe whether the information that viewers of the Spanish dubbed version receive regarding gay identity is the same that is portrayed in the original version in English.

Evading Frames: D’Antin van Rooten’s Homophonic Mother Goose

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Fraser
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
French Language ◽  
Speech Sounds ◽  
Cultural Turn ◽  
Intellectual Climate

In 1967, American dialect actor Luis d’Antin van Rooten published his now-classic Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames, a non-organic arrangement of French-language words and phrases designed to approximate the speech sounds of Mother Goose Rhymes. Though much read and imitated, these homophonic translations have largely evaded theoretical focus. Perhaps this is because their unique structuring allows them to evade anchorage in any specific contextual frame, and to send up the researcher’s own efforts toward contextualization, which has been prescribed as the methodological “first step” in Translation Studies since the Cultural Turn. Presented here, first of all, is a search for the potential frames of the Mots d’Heures–biographical, inter-textual, cinematic. These homophonic translations, I will then contend with reference to Jean-Jacques Lecercle (1990), exist to defy these frames by collapsing together, at the phono-articulate level, the target text with its most obvious context: the English-language source. Finally, I would contend, this collapse exemplifies the phenomena of “weaning,” “trans-contextual drift,” and “remainder” argued by Derrida (1988) as the enduring property of the signifying structure. The Mots d’Heures serve, then, as a playful reminder, in an intellectual climate where context reigns, of the signifying form’s structural ascendancy over the frame, of its “iterability.”

Polysystem theory

Target ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nam Fung Chang
Keyword(s):  
Translation Studies ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Cultural Turn

This article deals with three interrelated issues: first the ‘cultural turn’ of Itamar Even-Zohar in contrast to the ‘cultural turn’ in Translation Studies, then the application of an augmented version of Polysystem theory in a short case study, and finally the question of objectivity and neutrality in descriptive polysystem studies. It is argued that Polysystem theory and other cultural theories of translation, be they descriptive or politically committed, can be mutually enriching rather than incompatible, and that, with some augmentation and further development, it may serve as an adequate framework for research into the ‘external politics’ of translation.

Shared culture?

Target ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaisa Koskinen
Keyword(s):  
European Commission ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Institutional Culture ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Previous Attempt ◽  
Personal Note ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Shared Culture ◽  
Cultural Turn ◽  
The Eu

Ever since the “cultural turn” in Translation Studies it has been commonplace to state that translation is an act of cultural mediation. However, the concept of culture as such has remained elusive. A number of questions remain unanswered: How can we define a culture? What kind of empirical evidence is needed to prove the existence of a particular culture? Looking for answers, I start with a personal note, with my own previous attempt at conceptualizing translators’ work in the European Commission by defining the EU institutions as a (multilingual and institutional) culture of its own. Responses to this model convey varying views of the concept of culture. By analyzing and contextualizing these responses it is my aim to provide some answers to the question of what kind of a construction culture is. The results of the analysis are then used to reflect on recent developments in Translation Studies.

scholarly journals Translation of Addressing Terms in The Novel This Earth of Mankind

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-127
Author(s):  
Ardik Ardianto
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Limited Data ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Rigorous Analysis ◽  
Ethical Attitude ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Cultural Turn ◽  
Power Play

This paper is an attempt to approach the translational stylistics, aiming at identifying the equivalence and translation procedures used in translating the Toer’s authorial style from the Indonesian language to the English language in the novel This Earth of Mankind. A translational stylistics model proposed by Malmkjær was used to contrast the target text (TT) and the source text (ST), primarily focusing on the stylistic shift. Further, as to the model of translation procedures, it specifically employed Vinay and Darbelnet’s methodology for translation. Data used in this study were addressing terms found in two novels, the Indonesian novel Bumi Manusia and its translation This Earth of Mankind. The rigorous analysis demonstrated how the translation of addressing terms involved a wide range of aspects, such as sociocultural and historical values (including social identity and social strata) and power and solidarity relation. Therefore, it raised a number of noteworthy translation issues, i.e., its equivalence, stylistic shift, and translator’s strategies. Through the increasing awareness of ‘cultural turn’ in translation studies, the concept of equivalence is supposedly perceived not as an absolute assessment but as a mediating attempt to accommodate and transpose the inferred or perceived meaning from the ST to the TT as much as possible. However, the findings are not set out to appraise the translator’s ethical attitude, considering the limited data used in this study and numerous factors that are not yet taken into account, e.g. the power play of the translation industry, and culture-mediating agenda in the receiving culture.

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