Structured literature review of published research on indirect translation (2017–2022)

Focused on key issues in researching indirect translation, this article presents a dialogue with and between three scholars from different branches of Translation Studies: news translation, interpreting and literary translation. The aim of this dialogue is to address fundamental questions concerning the history of indirect translation studies, the methodological challenges faced by researchers investigating this practice, and the impact of English as a lingua franca and recent advancements in machine translation on the quality and future of indirect translations. This intra-disciplinary exchange allows us to identify unique perspectives and potential blind spots in approaches to indirect translation within specific branches of Translation Studies. At the same time, the dialogue sheds light on the various overlaps and complementarities between these approaches. We hope that the insights gained from this dialogue will not only deepen our understanding of indirect translation as a field of practice and research but also foster opportunities for future intra-disciplinary collaborations.

Although largely ignored by earlier researchers or examined only to a limited extent, indirect translation—translation from or for a translation—has come to be recognized as a noteworthy area, which can open a wide field for researchers. It would be fair to assert that it has experienced a significant upswing in research attention in the past few years with the publication of three special issues in the journal Target (Pięta et al., 2022), Translation Studies (Rosa et al., 2017), Perspectives (Davier et al., 2023) and also encyclopedic entries and books (Andre, 2020; Hadley, 2023; Pięta, 2021) and numerous research articles. Despite all efforts so far, “research on indirect translation [is] lagging so far behind other subfields that focus on adjacent phenomena (e.g. retranslation or self-translation […])” (Davier et al., 2023, p. 824). Therefore, the volume under review will considerably contribute to the extant literature. This book, co-authored by renowned scholars of indirect translation and in an accessible style, explores indirect translation across various domains, such as news translation, interpreting, and audiovisual translation, from both theoretical and practical perspectives. As such, it expands beyond the traditional focus on written and literary translation (Pięta et al., 2023). Packed with practical exercises, helpful tips, and effective solutions for learners, this volume is an essential read for translator trainers, trainees, scholars, and researchers of indirect translation. The book comprises seven core chapters, along with an introduction and a conclusion. Each chapter presents learning outcomes and suggests thought-provoking activities, which aim to enhance reader engagement with the text. The book also contains a glossary, which defines key terms for readers.

In spite of the recent expansion and consolidation of Translation Studies as a scholarly field, there are few studies in this area concerned with indirect translation. Considering this gap, this text deals with the concept of indirect translation in three different translational contexts, aiming to reflect on and expand the traditional understanding of what may be considered an indirect literary translation.

This paper deals with a central aspect related to translation that has been given surprisingly little attention in Translation Studies: sameness. We study sameness in a type of translation that according to previous studies entails additional shifts and losses – indirect translation. By indirect translation we mean a ‘translation based on a text (or texts) other than (only) the ultimate source text’ Our aim is to identify what stays the same in indirect literary translation in terms of plot. Our article is based on two case studies that comprehend particularly fuzzy chains of texts: the first Finnish translations of Robinson Crusoe and Peter Pan. Our main units of analysis are the plots of both works. We approach plot from a structural perspective and utilize plot function theory in our analysis. Our main research questions are: What in the plots of the two works studied has remained unaltered throughout the textual chain? What is the relation between plot elements that have been altered versus plot elements that have remained the same?

The current work attempts to explore the issues present during indirect translation of multimodal word texts like a world comics created by Herge with the help of a pragmatic theory, Relevance Theory of Communication propounded by Sperber and Wilson (1986, Relevance: Communication and Cognition, Blackwell, 1995), which has been successfully applied in the domain of translation by several scholars, notable and foremost among them being Ernst-August Gutt (Translation and Relevance: Cognition And Context, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1991, Translation and Relevance: Cognition And Context, St. Jerome, 2000). Using the insights provided by Gutt’s application of Relevance Theory to translation, this chapter will attempt a comparative analysis of Herge’s The Adventures of Tintin and its highly popular Bengali rendering. While acknowledging that linguistic differences are one major hurdle to be overcome for successful translation, the relevance-theoretic approaches bring out that contextual differences constitute a second major hurdle, of at least equal importance to the linguistic one. Thus, the study posits that one can depend on the assumption that multimodal world texts can also be called as visual world literature, and the related issues can be explicated through assistance by means of Mona Bakers Translation Universals

Despite its importance in a globalized world, indirect translation is a peripheral and under-researched topic in translation studies. Existing research on indirect translation is almost exclusively limited to literary translation and focuses mainly on historical aspects. From a methodological perspective, textual analysis based on close reading is the main source of insight into indirect translation, while distant reading using computational approaches remains unexplored. In order to promote methodological innovation, this study gives a replicable demonstration of how to apply supervised machine learning to corpora of indirect translations. The study is based on comparable corpora of proceedings from the European Parliament. Open-access data is used to ensure the replicability of the proposed methodology. Based on the computational findings, the methodological caveats of this approach are discussed.

Problematizing the long-standing practice of and negative perspectives regarding indirect translation in literature, this paper aims to discuss its general characteristics and cultural background as well as its creative potential in poetry translation, based on the textual analysis of Pablo Neruda’s Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada [Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair]1 which has been translated into Korean via an English translation. The paper points out that in Korea the practice of indirect translation has been generally related to the reception of major canonical literatures, and that the languages of political or cultural hegemony of the time such as Japanese and English have been the middle language. An analysis of the English and Korean translations of Neruda’s poetry collection indicates that, while it is inevitable that indirect translation has produced unintentional and sometimes unnecessary textual modifications, its translation strategy of literal translation as well as the translator’s in-depth knowledge of the poet and poet’s poetic world, despite the translator’s lack of proficiency in Spanish, has rather contributed to creating the expansion and diversification of new poetic dimension of the poem, which has been a byproduct of indirect translation.

Translatology of modern Kazakhstan has actualized the problem of translation of Kazakh literature into worldlanguages. The active process of literary translation has increased the interest of foreign readers in the national culture, creativity, and identity of the Kazakh people. It set a new vector for the research of Kazakh scholars in translation studies. However, owing to the lack of professional translators, direct translation from Kazakh into English has always been problematic, so Kazakh writers’ works were translated indirectly fromRussian into foreign languages. The article presents the problem of defining “indirect translation” by Western, Russian, and Kazakh linguists. Authors consider ways of adapting the direct and indirect translations bycomparing them with the source text of A. Nurpeisov's novel “Songy Paryz”. The paper aims to reveal theways of implementing linguocultural, pragmatic aspects of the original text and strategies for transferring artand pictorial means of the Kazakh language in direct and indirect translations. Experts in linguistics, translation studies, cognitive science, linguocultural studies, and literary criticism will be interested in the researchresults.

Reviewed by: The Translator on Stage by Geraldine Brodie Melanie Dreyer-Lude (bio) Geraldine Brodie. The Translator on Stage. New York: Bloomsbury Academic 2018. Pp. viii + 195. $29.95. Geraldine Brodie’s The Translator on Stage offers an in-depth and carefully researched examination of the relationship between the translation process and artistic practice on the contemporary London stage. Given the continuing debate surrounding translation (is this cultural appropriation?), the play that results (does it pass the speakability test?), and the professional value of translation practice (will it count toward tenure?), Brodie’s investigation provides a refreshing perspective. Brodie focuses her book on translation in production, identifying what we can learn about linguistic signification, cultural context, power structures, and economics. She carefully examines the composition of production teams, asking: Where does the translation process start? Who contributes to the construction of the translated text? Who can claim authorship once the play has reached the stage? She considers power dynamics by exposing when, where, and how translators are included or excluded in the construction of new, newly translated, and adapted work. Theoretically framed and well researched, the primary data supporting Brodie’s investigation comes from the field, specifically eight productions in the London professional theatre during the 2005 season. All of the plays considered in this book were translated from another language into British English. [End Page 143] In addressing her reasoning for the structure of her investigation, Brodie states “My research and discussions reflect the shifting nature of the subject itself; theatre translation is a field of mutability and sometimes unexpected liminality. It is also very exciting” (13). This book is not primarily a theoretical text. Brodie is concerned with the agency of the translator and the impact of power positioning on the final translation product. The composition of the creative team will necessarily shape and guide the translation process, one that is variant and particular to cultural context both geographic and economic. In order to examine translation agency, Brodie limits the field of independent factors. By selecting mainstream London theatres and one production season, she narrows the breadth of her investigation, allowing for more depth in her research. Using archival material and interviews with participating artists, Brodie investigates three modes of translation: direct translation (from source language to target language), literal translation (a non-interpreted, dramaturgically based translation used as a reference document), and indirect translation (a translation created by a non-native speaker using a literal translation as the source text). Using these frames, Brodie considers whether literal translators are considered hired guns or significant members of the creative team. She investigates correlations between the direct translation process and that of the indirect translator regarding issues of cultural tension. She considers the degree to which economic pressures influence the selection of translated texts and the shape of the final text used in production. Does a literal translation have a life beyond its function as a reference document, or it is merely a “disposable commodity”? (152). “My aim was to map the processes of translation, attempting to identify the choices and positions of the agents, in order to assess the extent to which the interplay of the personal and the collective is demonstrable in theatrical translation, as a theoretical concept, but also as a perceptible activity” (155). Each of the eight productions Brodie examines cover a substantial range of time: “from commission to performance” (13). In the first section of her book, Brodie creates an overview of the field of translation, locates the act of translation within the context of dramatic texts, and creates a summary of the productions and the artistic teams for each. Section 2 offers an in-depth discussion of each of the sites of investigation, providing an overview of each theatre, as well as the role each institution plays in the London theatre community. There are two useful tables which identify sources of revenue, and provide a reference for her discussion regarding the influence of box office receipts on the translation process. She shifts from an examination of the production site to the specific texts in section 3. Here she reveals the mechanisms of each production, detailing the process of selecting the text, the roles...

Typically, translation process involves two languages and two lingua-cultural traditions. In Kazakhstan, the situation in the field of literary translation is really specific: it is an indisputable fact that in translation from Kazakh into English and vice versa, Russian language works as a mediator due to the long-standing tradition of Kazakh-Russian/Russian-Kazakh translation; so, an intermediary role of Russian culture for rendering English texts into Kazakh is self-evident. Historically, Russian has become the second language for most of the Kazakh people; as a result, Russian language and culture are perceived as connatural phenomena as well as an important source for getting information. Moreover, Russian language and culture work as a cultural bridge between source (European) and target (Asian) cultures, particularly in course of translating from English into Kazakh. Therefore, the mediating role in indirect translation should be considered as one of Russian language functions; the authors developed a model of interaction between English, Russian, and Kazakh cultures in the process of indirect translation. So, the main peculiar features of indirect translation from English into Kazakh via Russian and corresponding cultural implications are considered the topical object of our research; the appropriate qualitative method represented by pre-translation text analysis, lingua-cultural interpretation of the texts has been used.

This thesis focuses on Gutt’s notion of relevance-theoretic account of translation. Through the examination of a number of cases of literary translation, it aims to clarify some of the misunderstandings about relevance theory and prove this theory can provide an adequate interpretation of translation as cross-cultural and interlingual communication. Key words: Relevance theory; Processing cost; Contextual effect; Direct translation; Indirect translation

The poetry of Jidi Majia celebrates the traditions of the Yi minority in China, especially the Nuosu tribe, or Black Yi. His works have attracted global recognition, thanks to their translation into over 40 languages, including English, Spanish, Irish, Greek and Scots. In 2019, a Portuguese version of Jidi’s poetry was produced by José Luís Peixoto, as part of a project jointly promoted by the National Press and Publication Administration of China and corresponding Portuguese cultural agencies. Given the relative scarcity of literary translators who are proficient in Mandarin and well-versed in the culture of Chinese ethnic minorities, the translation of Jidi Majia’s poetry into other languages usually relies on “indirect translation”, often using English as an “intermediate language.” For his Portuguese renditions, Peixoto used English, French, and Spanish as intermediate languages and solicited the collaboration of a Portuguese-speaking Chinese scholar, Cláudia You, to check his translations. The published version of Jidi Majia’s poetry in Portuguese is, therefore, the result of multiple layers of interpretation, rewriting, cross-checking and redrafting. As with all examples of indirect and collaborative translation, the process raises questions about responsibility and the relative authority of the contributing actors and intermediate texts. This article explores these questions, drawing not only on the Chinese source text, the English intermediate text and the Portuguese target text, but also on paratexts, including the introduction to the Portuguese edition, the email correspondence between José Luís Peixoto and Cláudia You, Cláudia You’s notes on Peixoto’s draft translations, and an interview with her about her experience as a collaborator. From this case study, the author of the present paper seeks to identify the boundaries and roles that must be negotiated in cases of collaborative and indirect translation, particularly when the outcome is to represent an ethnic minority for a cosmopolitan readership.

The study compared English translations of metaphors in Lu Xun’s short stories translated by L1 and L2 translators, adopting a corpus-assisted method. The patterns of the translation strategies were analyzed within the framework of the relevance theory. We found that paraphrasing as a rendering strategy was used more frequently in translating culture-specific metaphors than culture-universal ones, and more recurrently in translating conventional metaphors than creative ones. It suggested that more cognitive effort was required to translate these conventional, culture-specific metaphors, typical barriers in literary translation, to achieve optimal relevance. We also found that L1 translators were more target-oriented in rendering the metaphors than L2 translators, indicating an impact of translation direction on the translators’ performance. Finally, the present research testified the interplay of the two routes (i.e., direct translation and indirect translation) in literary translation and demonstrated that the interaction between the two routes was regulated by the principle of relevance and modulated by such essential factors as the source input and the translation direction.

Literary translation is never the product of one individual only but reflects the interventions of several agents: commissioners of the translation, source text authors, translators (including those involved in collaborative translations, retranslations and indirect translations), censors, publishers, editors, literary agents and patrons promoting the publication of the translation, often imposing the dominant ideology or poetics in the target society and culture. Collaboration, conflict and control vary in each individual circumstance and give rise to different ethical tensions. The chapter highlights the history and the contemporary TS research of collaboration and control in the field of literary translation and of the ethical dilemmas these collaborations may engender.

The paper presents the project entitled Neighbours with a Go-Between that was carried out by the University of Klagenfurt (Austria) and the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) between 2016 and 2019, combining indirect literary translation and intercultural communication. Based on the analysis of student reports, the study shows how the task of collaborative indirect literary translation helped form a temporary community of practice, which in turn enabled the crossing of several types of boundaries and fostered intercultural learning.