Abstract

Fictional representations of multilingualism and translation

Highlights

  • Fictional representations of multilingualism and translationDirk Delabastita & Rainier Grutman University of Namur & University of Ottawa1

  • Juliette Taylor provides us with fascinating insights into polyglot puns and “mistranslation” in Nabokov, while Maria Brunner and Marco Kunz draw our attention to the complex mechanisms involved in the fictionalization of socially stigmatized speech styles in migrant literature (Gastarbeiterdeutsch and Spanglish, respectively)

  • One level below the sacred / human interface, we find another body of narratives in which translators potentially have massive power and crushing responsibilities, namely in the realm of science fiction, where storylines often pose problems of communication – of translation – on an interplanetary, interstellar or even intergalactic scale

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Summary

The road less travelled

Back in the 1980s, when one of us two started looking into literary bilingualism, scholars working on the topic often felt obliged to justify their interest in such an unconventional domain of study. The fact that we in the Western world, where communication typically has to bridge long distances and involves increasingly sophisticated technology, consider this to be the default-situation, does not imply that it is: Denison quotes examples from the Amazon area, as well as from Africa and New Guinea, where adult multilingual competence is the rule, not the exception Likewise, he goes on to say, “translation is seldom necessary for purely informative needs”, but tends to intervene for “considerations other than the straightforward communication of information” (ibid.). As Marco Kunz (in this volume) reminds us, the reader most likely to derive pleasure from Stavans’ initiative, is s/he who compares Cervantes’ early 17th-century text with its early 21st-century reincarnation

Fictional representations of language contact in time and space
An open concept of multilingualism
Multilingualism and translation
The power of the translator
Between Gods and humans
Intergalactic
Subjective experience
Such stuff as stories are made on
From story content to textual representation
Translating multilingualism
Conclusion: a ‘fictional turn in translation studies’?
Full Text
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