Intersemiotic Translations Research Articles

“The Master and Margarita” as a “Strong” Text of Russian Culture: Translation Aspect

The paper deals with the original inexhaustibility and translation multiplicity as new literary translation categories. Particular attention is paid to the information ambiguity of “strong” literary texts, which directly results in the generation of numerous centres of translation attraction. A “strong” text of Russian culture The Master and Margarita and its secondary texts resulting from the performed interlingual and intersemiotic translations served as the material for the present study. The centre of translation attraction, which is formed from the Bulgakov’s text, is considered from the standpoint of translation theory and literary criticism, which corresponds to the universal scientific principle of complementarity and provides a complementary approach to the “strong” text as a research object. The formation and further functioning of the centres of translation attraction is of particular interest in the case of using a “strong” literary text of Russian culture as an attractor of literary translation due to the traditional literocentrism of the Russian culture. Numerous translations of the novel provides “expendability” of a culturally significant text in the temporal and cultural spaces and serve as a guarantee of its “preservation” and survival.

Poesia, arte e tecnologia: um diálogo com a imagem do amor em Sebastião Nunes

This paper proposes a reflectionon the creative process from the relationships between verbal and non verbal in the context of poetic dialogues between art and poetry and intermediality, considering there's intersemiotic translations that allow us to discuss also aspects of technology. To do this we chose as study object the image of love in the poetry of Sebastiao Nunes, specifically the book Antologias Mamalucas.

Héroes y antihéroes transtextuales: el caso "Kony2012"

In the frame of the narratological theory of structural and generative semiotics, the article defines narrations as “civilizing machines”, indispensable in order for a social group and its members to perpetuate through time and transmit through space their hierarchy of values. After tackling the problem of the representation of evil in narrations, and above all in the iconic transposition of verbal tales, the essay reflects on what is left of the efficaciousness of the narrative device when it is subject not only to intersemiotic translations, but also to transmediatic operations. Having defined transmediality as transtextuality, the article manifests a series of doubts on the effectiveness of a tale that, as a product of the digitalization of expressive substances and the consequent being scattered through a globalized, Protean, and fragmentary communication, continuously challenges the textual frame and requires, from those who receive it, a metanarrative competence. The essay concludes with the analysis of a case study, the social activism short movie Kony2012.

Path dependencies in media design: evolutionary dynamics of early mobile web and its textual forms

This article proposes an interdisciplinary approach to studying the dynamics that condition the evolution of various path dependencies of media systems, comprised of specific industry institutions, their formations, the markets they create, usage practices, audience constellations and textual formations. The interdisciplinary approach involves the integration of the semiotics of culture approach (Lotman) with the evolutionary economics approach. As the former studies the dynamics of inter-semiotic translations to interpret the evolution of media's new textual forms and the latter focuses on phenomena such as resource constraints or industry exchange relationships, then in aggregation, they may help to interpret the manifold dynamics that might contribute both to the formation of diachronic continuities as well as discontinuities in a culture. The empirical case that the article focuses on is the early evolution of the mobile web, its path dependence on the preceding media, especially desktop web, and its potential divergence from this “parent platform”, its gradual emancipation as an autonomous media domain

Who is Alive: The More or the Less the Inter-Semiotic Translation of 'The Conference of the Birds'

Farid al-din Attar (1146-1221), a Persian poet, composed his masterpiece ‘The Conference of the Birds’ (Mantiq al-tair) in 1177. Although other writers, notably Avicenna (980-1037), Mohammad Al-Ghazali (1058– 1112) and others authored similar works before him, the version attributed to Attar is considered by most scholars to be aesthetically superior to the others. Furthermore, a number of different inter-semiotic translations have been done from Attar’s work which reflects the significance of his work. How the Birds gather in a Conference: According to the poem's plot, gather to decide who is to be their king. The wisest of them (the hoopoe) suggests that they should seek out the legendary Simorgh, a bird more or less analogous in the Western tradition to the mythical Phoenix. literally translated means thirty birds and functions in Attar’s version of the poem as a metaphor for God. When the assembly of these at last reaches the Simorgh nest, they find only their own reflections gazing back at them from the surface of a lake.Attar organizes his poem so that each part is narrated by a different bird, and eventually the individual frame stories accumulate to produce a single effect, uniting in a single construct-- a multiform but coherent and therefore superior bird. Because of its distinctive structure, Attar’s work is, by definition, an early example of macro-fiction.

Images performed by words in Howard Jacobson’n novel Kalooki Nights. Remarks about intersemiotic relations among words and pictures

Images performed by words in Howard Jacobson’s novel “Kalooki Nights”. Remarks about intersemiotic relations among words and picturesThe article titled Images performed by words in Howard Jacobson’n novel Kalooki Nights. Remarks about intersemiotic relations among words and pictures concerns the intersemiotic tensions among words and pictures. The theoretical model is supported by the interpretation of Howard Jacobson’s novel titled Kalooki Nights. This novel redefines the limits of representation and reception of the Holocaust in the context of identity and contemporary world. Exploring the forms of “reading” (“looking at”) of the linguistic codes as the visual codes, such terms like “transframing” and “performing” refer to the patterns of creation the fictional worlds (constructed by the words which are treated as the images). The being of words still means looking through them, through their semantic flaws. This intersemiotic translations are rooted in the will of creation (Eros) and the will of destruction (Thanatos). The history of interpretations of these two sources of semiosphere touches the limits of questions: what can be shown in written wor(l).

Translation as communication and auto-communication

If one wants to understand translation, it is necessary to look at all its aspects from the psychological to the ideological. And it is necessary to see the process of translation, on the one hand, as a complex of interlinguistic, intralinguistic, and intersemiotic translations, and on the other hand, as a complex of linguistic, cultural, economic, and ideological activities. Translators work at the boundaries of languages, cultures, and societies. They position themselves between the poles of specificity and adaptation in accordance with the strategies of their translational behaviour. They either preserve the otherness of the other or they transform the other into self. By the same token, they cease to be simple mediators, because in a semiotic sense they are capable of generating new languages for the description of a foreign language, text, or culture, and of renewing a culture or of having an influence on the dialogic capacity of a culture with other cultures as well as with itself. In this way, translators work not only with natural languages but also with metalanguages, languages of description. One of the missions of the translator is to increase the receptivity and dialogic capability of a culture, and through these also the internal variety of that culture. As mediators between languages, translators are important creators of new metalanguages.

The Song of the Earth

This article discusses the creativity and originality that can be generated by both interlingual and intersemiotic translations. The text of Gustav Mahler’s song symphony Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) is taken from Hans Bethge’s adaptations of Chinese Tang poetry. In 2002 a modern Chinese dance was set to Mahler’s masterpiece by Chiang Ching, a Chinese choreographer now living in the US. For this performance, Mahler’s text was translated into Chinese by Cheng Chou-yu, an influential contemporary Chinese poet, and was recited as interludes between the movements. The present article explores this loop of intertextuality surrounding Das Lied von der Erde, created by interlingual and intersemiotic translations, and illustrates how the idea of ‘translation’ is deeply embedded in Mahler’s composition and Chiang Ching’s staging of the dance. For Mahler the idea of his text being a translation justifies his musical innovation; for Chiang Ching the overall aesthetic of her dance hinges on the idea that her ‘source text’, namely Mahler’s lyrics, is already a translation.

Translation as communication and auto-communication

IF ONE WANTS to understand translation, is necessary to look at all its aspects from psychological to ideological. And is necessary to see process of translation, on one hand, as a complex of interlinguistic, intralinguistic, and intersemiotic translations, and on other hand, as a complex of linguistic, cultural, economic, and ideological activity. Translators work at boundaries of languages, cultures, and societies. They position themselves between poles of specificity and adaptation in accordance with strategies of their translational behaviour. They either preserve otherness of other or they transform other into self. By same token, they cease to be simple mediators, because in a semiotic sense they are capable of generating new languages for description of a foreign language, text, or culture, and of renewing a culture or of having an influence on dialogic capacity of a culture with other cultures as well as with itself. In this way, translators work not only with natural languages but also with metalanguages, languages of description. One of missions of translator is to increase receptivity and dialogic capability of a culture, and through these also internal variety of that culture. As mediators between languages, translators are important creators of new metalanguages. The status of and translator have changed from one historical era to next, and at beginning of 21st century we are confronting need for a complex understanding of them both. At core of this complex understanding is universality of translation. The universality of comes from its connections with thought processes. As Yurii Lotman affirms, the elementary act of thinking is translation (Lotman 2000:143). And he stresses in same place that the elementary mechanism of translating is (Lotman 2000:143). The irreducibility of dialogue to mere communication in a language common to dialogue's participants is very important. For Lotman everything begins with need for dialogue: ... need for dialogue, dialogic situation, precedes both real dialogue and even existence of a language in which to conduct it (Lotman 2000:143-144). The need for dialogue can be viewed either at level of a comprehensive theoretical understanding or at level of deep-seated mechanism of individual behavior. The need for dialogue is tied in a complementary way both to needs of an audience, which can be studied in theory of mass communication (McQuail 2000), and to various personal needs (self-understanding, enjoyment, escapism) and social needs (knowledge about world, self-confidence, stability, self-esteem, strengthening of connections with family and friends) in theory of communication (Fiske 2000:20). Any form of identity also depends on need for dialogue. At core of personal, national, or social identity is recognition of boundary between self and other. The boundary not only divides but also unites and thus participates in dialogic processes. To a large extent dialogue within boundaries depends on dialogue at boundaries. Translators work at boundaries of languages, cultures, and societies. They position themselves between poles of specificity and adaptation in accordance with strategies of their translational behaviour. They either preserve otherness of other or they transform other into self. By same token, they cease to be simple mediators, because in a semiotic sense they are capable of generating new languages for description of a foreign language, text, or culture, and of renewing a culture or of having an influence on dialogic capacity of a culture with other cultures as well as with itself. In this way, translators work not only with natural languages but also with metalanguages, languages of description. …

Literary Translation as Semiotic Interpretation in the Light of Philological Hermeneutics

In recent years translation and particularly the translation of literature is perceived as interpretation. Several decades ago, Roman Jacobson put forward the idea of translation as semiotic interpretation distinguishing between in intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic translations. While intralingual translation is the translation of verbal signs with the help of other signs, and inter-lingual translation is the interpretation of the verbal signs of one language with those of another language, intersemiotic translation is the interpretation of the verbal signs by means of non-verbal sign systems. Hence, according to the rule of extralinguistic signs, the main concern of the one who studies a piece of translation is the examination of the extralinguistic phenomena which have ensured the existence of the overall vertical context. The semiotic study of the original and the translation insists on revealing the vertical context, i.e. the literary, aesthetic, moral values and their recreation in the translated version with the help of the non-verbal signs of another language.

Translation as translating as culture

The most common difficulty in translation studies has traditionally been the dilemma between the historical and synchronic approaches in the analysis and description of the culture of translation. On the one hand the culture of translation might be presented as the sum of various kinds of translated texts (repertoire of culture), on the other hand it might be described as the hierarchy of the various types of translations themselves. The first approach assumes plenty of languages for such description, in the latter one suggests only one language for the same representation. A cultural critic faces the same problems. In these perspectives the translation reveals important mechanisms of the performance of culture. First of all it is the semiotic interpretation of the theory of translation, introduced by the number of scientists beginning with R. Jakobson and including U. Eco who put together interlinguistic, intra-linguistic, and inter-semiotic translations, so crucial for the further understanding of culture. As a result, the general notion of culture might be described as the process of total translation. And secondly, the other valuable contribution to the theory of translation has been made by both M. Bakhtin and J. Lotman in terms of the synthesis of two traditions in semiotics of culture resulted in juxtaposing such notions as dialogism and autonomy — creolization, polyphony, counterword, and translation.