Translation Of Fiction Research Articles

Introduction: Reassessing the Strand Magazine, 1891–1918

Introduction:Reassessing the Strand Magazine, 1891–1918 Emma Liggins and Minna Vuohelainen "THE STRAND to some extent revolutionized Magazines in this country," the hundredth issue of the Strand Magazine (1891–1950) boldly declared in 1899.1 Since its inception in January 1891, George Newnes's heavily illustrated sixpenny monthly had offered its readers outstanding value for money. The magazine's satisfying mix of short fiction, serialised novels, illustrated interviews, puzzles, scientific curiosities, travel writing, and articles about celebrities and the royal family ensured its continued popularity well into the twentieth century. In 1966 the Strand's final editor and biographer, Reginald Pound, described the monthly as a British "national institution" that was "as much a symbol of immutable British order as Bank Holidays and the Changing of the Guard."2 Yet this leading British fiction monthly that endured for six decades has received relatively little sustained scholarly attention. This special issue of Victorian Periodicals Review reassesses the significance of the Strand in the British cultural imagination from the 1890s to the end of the First World War. The essays collected here explore the heterogeneity and cultural readability of this key periodical, including its editorial policies; use of illustration; intertextual mixture of fictional, factual, and human-interest material; participation in socio-cultural debates; and construction of reader communities and readerly identities. These essays seek to shed light on some of the forgotten contributors, artists, and personalities who helped to establish the Strand's leading position in the periodical market in the first half of its sixty-year run. Together, they demonstrate the Strand's significant contributions to British middlebrow culture in diverse fields including the short story form, genre fiction, continental fiction in translation, illustration, celebrity culture, science and communications technology, spiritualism, and war journalism. [End Page 221] A somewhat nebulous term, the "middlebrow" carries negative associations with unambitious popular culture aimed at a culturally conservative audience in search of social respectability and inexpensive, unintellectual leisure pursuits.3 Middlebrow culture is usually seen as reflecting rather than shaping contemporary trends and debates, and its consumers are perceived as conservative followers rather than radical modernisers. In an academic culture that valorises novelty, experimentation, transgression, and rupture, the middlebrow is often dismissed as unworthy of serious scholarship. As Laurel Brake and Marysa Demoor note, until relatively recently scholars have also neglected the illustrated press, which targeted newly literate and middlebrow readers, as reflective and passive rather than active and innovative.4 By reassessing the Strand's contributions to British culture at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, this special issue seeks to extend current critical approaches to middlebrow culture. While the essays identify instances in which the Strand conformed to middlebrow tastes and confirmed existing notions of respectability, they also reveal how the magazine shaped readerly identities, contributed to artistic developments, and influenced or questioned current intellectual, artistic, and social debates. Readership Communities Founded in 1891 by the enterprising publisher George Newnes (1855–1910), who had made his fortune from the penny weekly Tit-Bits (1881–1984), the Strand Magazine was launched as a British alternative to the American Scribner's and Harper's.5 At sixpence, the Strand offered its readers 112, later 120, heavily illustrated two-columned pages of "cheap, healthful literature" per month, consisting of a varied diet of "stories and articles by the best British writers, and special translations from the first foreign authors … illustrated by eminent artists."6 By 1896 its circulation had reached approximately 400,000 and would remain at this level through the early twentieth century and the First World War.7 The Strand relied on the commercial acumen of Newnes, who famously claimed to be "the average man" and thus to know his leisure needs.8 "Few firms," the Literary Year-Book observed of Newnes's publishing empire in 1897, "can boast the attention of so wide a circle of general readers."9 The Strand enjoyed a remarkable degree of editorial continuity with Herbert Greenhough Smith (1855–1935) serving as literary editor from 1891 to 1930. Smith was eminently suited to this role because he was the Cambridge-educated son of an engineer and therefore "both a professional and an...

Восприятие русской литературы в Британии в конце XIX — начале XX века

The purpose of the article is to analyze the existing ideas about Russian literature in Britain at the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. A brief overview of the advancement of works by Russian classics among British readers is given. The spread of Russian literature in Britain had been progressing slowly for a long time due to the difficulty in translation and the lack of interest in Russia and Russian culture. However, at the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries, the situation changed in the British literary community. This period saw a plethora of publications of translations of Russian fiction that were accomplished by professional translators, Slavonic scholars, and writers. These translations appeared in periodicals and other print formats. The article provides an overview of the translation of works of F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy, A. P. Chekhov, who have become the most understandable and accessible to the English mentality. It happened thanks to such outstanding translators as C. Garnett, Aylmer and Louise Maude, S. S. Koteliansky (who worked in collaboration with V. Woolf, J. M. Murry), R. E. C. Long and others. Having gained access to high-quality translations of Russian classics, British writers began to study their works in greater detail. The British saw the influence of English and European writers (W. Shakespeare, Ch. Dickens, J.-J. Rousseau, J. W. Goethe, V. Hugo, etc.), e.g., in F. M. Dostoevsky’s works. However, later the Russian influence could also be felt in the Western novel, modifying it. There is an opinion that the works of A. P. Chekhov, translated by Garnett, changed the English short story, making it exactly as we know it. V. Woolf, J. Joyce, B. Shaw, J. Galsworthy, A. Bennett and others admired the depth, style, and language of Russian writers. Translation of works of great Russian authors facilitated the flow of information about Russia and expanded the Brit’s view on the country and its people. It once again confirms the existence of mutual cultural exchange between the two countries from a historical perspective. It can be argued that, despite all the complexities of the relationship, the mutual influence of the literatures of the two countries is quite significant.

ФРАЗЕОЛОГІЧНА СИНОНІМІЯ В МОВІ ХУДОЖНІХ ПЕРЕКЛАДІВ МИКОЛИ ЛУКАША: ДЖЕРЕЛА ТА РЕАЛІЗАЦІЯ

The language of artistic translation in Ukrainian linguistics is considered to be an integral part of the literary language, at the level of the language of the original Ukrainian literature. Among the Ukrainian translations of fiction, the work of M. Lukash is a special place. This translator has his own original style, based on traditional classical Ukrainian literature and his contemporary teaching. He entered not only in the history of Ukrainian artistic translation, but also significantly influenced the Ukrainian literary language of the second half of the twentieth century. In the idiostyle M. Lukash the special attention deserves to be studied the features of phraseological synonymy. Priority tasks include the establishment of sources of phraseological synonyms of M. Lukash, studying it against the background of codified phrases. The article substantiates the idea that synonymous connections in the language of translation of M. Lukash penetrate the overwhelming majority of phraseological units. The study of the specificity of phraseological relations in M. Lukash’s idiostyle, the intersection of synonymous series and values in the selected material for analysis will allow us to develop the concept of the ideographic dictionary of M. Lukash’s phraseological translations.

An Interstitial Space: Cross-Cultural Negotiation and Concession in Early Fiction Translations in New Youth

This article focuses on the early translations published in New Youth, a leading periodical of the New Culture movement in China. While extant research mostly focuses on this journal's iconoclastic and radical arguments that prepared the way for the May Fourth movement in 1919, this article examines the period before Chen Duxiu, founder of New Youth, raised the banner of literary revolution. By interrogating the concealed history of the relay translations of fiction published in New Youth, especially Chen Gu's translations of Turgenev's novellas, this article unfolds the various approaches Chinese translators took in presenting Western culture, which sometimes involved unexpected processes of localization due to Japanese mediation. Specifically, I argue that the early translations in New Youth formed an interstitial space of hybridity where writers negotiated among different visions of transcultural syntheses.

Localization in translation theory and practice: historical and cultural view (the case of fiction adaptation)

The paper deals with the concept of localization and historical prerequisites of its use within the field of translation studies. We show that the sphere of localization techniques use is not limited by computer-mediated products but spreads on purely linguistic procedures of text adaptation as well. Since today there is no consensus among researchers and translators about the status of localization in the modern translation studies, we make an attempt to clarify the role and relevance of this term for the theory and practice of translation using the examples of fiction adaptation. The research is based on the material of a number of original and translated poetry works, including plays by W. Shakespeare and poems by Robert Burns, Ivan Krylov and Walter Scott. It is shown that the techniques of linguocultural adaptation used by translators in the 18th – 19th centuries are in fact those peculiar of the modern localization process. This fact proves the terminological value of the concept under study as the one denoting a certain type of translation activity which implies communicative equivalence and vague ties between the two texts. The considered examples of free translation of fiction prove that the process of localization is conditioned by literary and translational traditions, in particular, by the conception of free translation, which focused on the popularization of foreign works and a given ideological impact.

Translator Profile in the Discourse around Translation: Promotion and Reception of the English Translations of the Fiction of Bruno Schulz


 The paper discusses the role of (perceived) translator profile in the current promotion and reception of three competing English translations of fiction by the modernist Polish-Jewish author Bruno Schulz (1892–1942): Celina Wieniewska’s 1963/1978 canonical version, John Curran Davis’s ca. 2005–2010 online fan retranslation, and Madeline Levine’s retranslation, publicized since 2012 and forthcoming in 2018. Based on a para- and extratextual analysis of the discourse around these versions, combined with archive research into translator history, it explores the ways in which the translator’s profile is used to promote the translation and develop or support opinions about it. Wieniewska’s personal background, difficult to access due to the invisibility of the ‘historical’ translator, has been ignored by readers and critics, even though it would help understand her choice of translation strategy and thus make the recent criticism of her translation more informed. Conversely, in the case of Davis and Levine, not only are the retranslators visible to the extent that they actively promote their work themselves, but also judgments are passed, boundaries drawn and distinctions made based on their profiles rather than their performance: their work has been assessed to a large extent without reference to their actual translation choices. The retranslators’ lives – educational background, affiliation, professional experience – all turn out to play a major role in the critical discourse around their work, replacing the reading or, in the extreme case of Levine’s yet unpublished translation, even the very existence of the translated text.

Dragomans Gaining Footing: Translators as Usurpers in Two Stories by Rodolfo Walsh and Moacyr Scliar

Abstract: Fictional texts focusing on translators and translation have proliferated in world literature during the last fifty years. Thanks to the recent and commonly named “fictional turn” in Translation Studies, fictional translators have been studied and analyzed much more and made ever more visible. This visibility serves to consider translators not as mere interlingual photocopiers but as social beings that operate in particular sociocultural contexts. Two stories from Latin America, “Notas al pie” (Footnotes) by Rodolfo Walsh (1967) and “Notas ao pe da pagina” (Footnotes) by Moacyr Scliar (1995), introduce translators who are uncomfortable with having to occupy a second-rate space. The fictional translators’ footnotes utilize whole pages (effectively taking over in each of the stories) and usurp a space that is conventionally assigned only to writers/authors of a text. The translators in these stories have found a way to use these explanatory comments to their advantage. Since footnotes are often not well-received by many readers, who consider them temporary interruptions and/or a nuisance, they are usually kept to a minimum. Our fictional translators, however, increase the size and number of footnotes dramatically. The clear-cut hierarchical relationships between writer/author and translator are reversed in these stories to unveil the struggle for power that exists between the figures of author and translator. Both stories can also serve as pedagogical tools to discuss the exciting world of Translation Studies.

Specifics of Translation of Emotive Vocabulary (Case study: “Howl's Moving Castle” Novel by Diana Wynne Jones)

The expression of an emotional state is a main feature that distinguishes fiction from other literary trends. The problem of emotivity is now among the most discussed issues in anthropocentric linguistics, but despite the researchers’ great attention, many of its aspects are still debatable. In the present research, features of the language transfer of emotions are investigated in the translation of fiction from English into Russian. The novel «Howl’s moving castle» by Diana Wynne Jones (1986) was selected as a material for monitoring the process of translating emotive vocabulary. Authors sought to classify the emotive vocabulary in an artistic work, and also consider and analyze the translation of this lexicon into Russian that was translated by Jones (2013). The following methods were used to solve tasks: A comparative analysis of the translation with original text, and transformational, quantitative, statistical analysis. The theoretical basis of research included classifications of emotive vocabulary that was proposed by Shakhovski (2008), and the classification of emotions by Izard (2007), as well as the classification of translational transformations by Barkhudarov (1975) and Komissarov (1990). The theoretical significance of research lies in the fact that the text emotivity phenomenon is considered according to the comparative linguistics, in general, and the theory of translation in particular. The equivalence of concepts of equivalence and adequacy of translation is justified and clearly demonstrated. The practical value of study is determined by the possibility of applying its results in the artistic translation, in teaching the methodology of translation, in development of didactic manuals on the theory and practice of translation, in the teaching English at senior courses of universities on practical lessons and seminars in special courses.

‘Under surveillance’. An introduction to popular fiction in translation

ABSTRACTThe translation of popular fiction is an under researched field within Translation Studies, with a very limited number of general studies and a few articles scattered among different journals and edited collections. The introduction to this special issue on popular fiction in translation highlights the novelty of the volume, looking at translated popular texts from a broad-based perspective, providing a literature overview and identifying some common traits in the translation of popular fiction. First, we introduce some general issues related to the study of popular texts, ranging from questions of definition of the field to aspects concerning the position of popular fiction within the wider cultural system. This is followed by a review of available research on various genres and aspects of popular fiction in translation, including those discussed in the nine articles contained in the volume. The contributions are then introduced with reference, in particular, to three recurring themes: the role of censorship and self-censorship, the pervasive practice of remediation, and the way in which gender issues affect translated popular genres. The introduction ends with some suggestions for future research.

From antiheroes to new realism: French and Italian crime fiction in the twentieth and twenty-first century

ABSTRACTCrime fiction has been constantly present in Greek popular culture, mainly through translations published in newspapers, magazines and in book form, from the nineteenth century to the present day. While the Anglo-American influence on the development of Greek popular literature as a whole has undoubtedly been paramount since the beginning of the twentieth century, other national traditions have also played an important role. In this article, I provide an overview of cultural transfers between Greek, and French and Italian crime fiction in the twentieth and twenty-first century, taking into account the major influence of French culture and literature in Greece since the Enlightenment, and the common emergence of a new French and Italian crime fiction in translation after the 1990s. In particular, I look at the interplay between translated crime fiction and indigenous Greek texts, focusing on the emergence and consecration of the genre in relation to key texts, agents and events. Drawing on a definition of translation as rewriting, I examine interlingual, as well as intersemiotic practices, showing how the history of the genre in Greece has been (re)written through translation.

Science fiction, cultural industrialization and the translation of techno-science in post-World War II Italy

ABSTRACTA wave of translations of Anglo-American science fiction characterized the Italian publishing market during the years of the ‘economic miracle’ (1950s–1960s). Starting from an assessment of quantitative data about science fiction novels published in specialized series, the article discusses the agency of publishers and editors in shaping and marketing ideas of genre, in terms of selection of texts to be translated, adaptation through the paratextual apparatus and translation strategies. Translations in popular series were in fact characterized by a vast range of domestication and manipulation phenomena. A close reading of a number of cases reveals a complex series of motives at work behind these practices: from the adaptation to a readership younger than the original one – and/or believed by the publishers to be less culturally prepared – to economic factors, as the physical characteristics of each book were strictly standardized, and issues of cost and seriality often took precedence over artistic considerations.

Foreign literature as poison: (self-)censorship in the translation of German popular fiction in Italy during the 1930s

ABSTRACTBetween the 1920s and 1930s, the translation of foreign contemporary novels into Italian was encouraged by publishers, meeting the needs of a new readership, which was larger and more heterogeneous than before the war. However, the sharp rise in the number of imported novels provoked strong disapproval. In a context of heightened nationalism and cultural autocracy, translation was considered a polluting, anti-patriotic and servile practice. The censorship that took place, however, was mostly implemented via a tacit compromise between the publishers and the regime, rather than by repressive institutional actions. In order to protect themselves from sanctions and requisitions, publishers and translators often deleted potentially unpleasant elements from the texts, including topics such as abortion, suicide, pacifism, sexuality, women’s emancipation or episodes belittling Italy. The analysis of German popular fiction translated into Italian in this period suggests that popular literature was translated with a high degree of manipulation. This may be ascribed to the low cultural status accorded to this type of literature and the modernity of the themes it contained. Furthermore, while ‘high literature’ catered to a niche readership, the widespread circulation of popular literature made it seem more dangerous and thus more subject to censorship.

Norms Governing the Dialect Translation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations: An English-Greek Perspective

This paper aims to investigate the norms governing the translation of fiction from English into Greek by critically examining two Greek translations of Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations. One is by Pavlina Pampoudi (Patakis, 2016) and the other, is by Thanasis Zavalos (Minoas, 2017). Particular attention is paid to dialect translation and special emphasis is placed on the language used by one of the novel’s prominent characters, namely, Abel Magwitch. In particular, twenty instances of Abel Magwitch’s dialect are chosen in an effort to provide an in-depth analysis of the dialect-translation strategies employed as well as possible reasons governing such choices. It is argued that both translators favour standardisation in their target texts, thus eliminating any language variants present in the source text. The conclusion argues that societal factors as well as the commissioning policies of publishing houses influence to a great extent the translators’ behaviour, and consequently, the dialect-translation strategies adopted. Hence, greater emphasis on the extra-linguistic, sociological context is necessary for a thorough consideration of the complexities of English-Greek dialect translation of fiction.

ПЕРЕВОД ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ С ПОЗИЦИИ ЕКОТРАНСЛЯТОЛОГИИ

The article aims at analyzing fiction translation from the point of view of a recently emerged eco-translatological perspective to literary translation criticism. Originally, it is a Chinese theory brought forth by Hu Gengshen in Translation Studies. Eco-

ПЕРЕВОД ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ С ПОЗИЦИИ ЕКОТРАНСЛЯТОЛОГИИ

The article aims at analyzing fiction translation from the point of view of a recently emerged eco-translatological perspective to literary translation criticism. Originally, it is a Chinese theory brought forth by Hu Gengshen in Translation Studies. Eco-

Translation Shifts in Spatial and Temporal Deixis: A Trend Towards a More Subjective Narrative Mood in Fiction Translation

Translation Shifts in Spatial and Temporal Deixis: A Trend Towards a More Subjective Narrative Mood in Fiction Translation

The Destabilization of Symbolic Boundaries in the Consumption of Translated Fiction

For several decades, the positive norms of cosmopolitanism and omnivorousness have dominated cultural consumption in Britain. This paper will discuss the implications of these interrelated affinities in the popular reception of fiction in translation. Ethnographic data for the study has been collected mostly through participant observation with book club members in the UK. Through an analysis of statements made by readers, the article will illustrate how reading and discussing fiction in translation encourages readers to mobilize their international cultural capital and how horizontal and vertical boundaries between genres become blurred. Consequently, individual translations may become “upgraded” or “downgraded” in aesthetic terms, especially in the ways these books have been packaged and marketed to readers.

ПРОБЛЕМА АДЕКВАТНОСТИ ПЕРЕВОДА ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОГО ТЕКСТА И СОХРАНЕНИЯ АВТОРСКОГО ИДИОСТИЛЯ (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ ПЕРЕВОДА НА ЛЕЗГИНСКИЙ ЯЗЫК ПОВЕСТИ А. С. ПУШКИНА «КАПИТАНСКАЯ ДОЧКА», ВЫПОЛНЕННОГО М. М. ГАДЖИЕВЫМ)

The article contains the characteristic of the specificity of applying the methods and principles of the fiction translation from the Russian language into the Lezghian one, their influence on the adequacy of translation and preservation of the writer’s idiostyle. The authors describe the peculiarities of interpreter’s use of interlanguage transformations. An attempt is made to characterize the possibilities of creating the equivalent translation of a literary text by means of a language that differs in system and structure from the original language.

Translation Shifts in Spatial and Temporal Deixis: A Trend Towards a More Subjective Narrative Mood in Fiction Translation

This study examines the translational deictic shifts in three Arabic translations of the English novel Wuthering Heights and the effect of this shift in the spatio-temporal point of view and stylistic features of the original. The study finds shift in spatial and temporal deixis that manifests a strong tendency towards increasing the ‘level of enunciation’ of narrators’ spatial and temporal location within the narrative. This shift brings the main narrator closer to the other characters in temporal, spatial, and mental space, hence increasing her involvement in events and empathy towards characters. At the same time, it distances the outside frame narrator, who has limited contact with characters, and increases his detachment and antipathy. In both cases more is revealed of narrator-character relationships and the narrator’s evaluations, leading to a more subjective narrative mood. It is hoped that the study will be applicable to different translated literary works to compare the findings and gain more understanding on the norms of English-Arabic fiction translation.

Chester B. Himes: A Biography

Chester B. Himes: A Biography