Interlingual Translation Research Articles

Książka obrazkowa jako przekład intersemiotyczny – "Król Maciuś Pierwszy" w obrazach Iwony Chmielewskiej

A picturebook as an intersemiotic translation of a source text involves a complex process of negotiating and generating meaning by interpretation, selection and mediation. When there is a considerable time gap between the first publication of the source text and its translation into a new visual modality, additional concerns appear that further complicate the process. To what extent is modernization recommended or needed? How does the unfolding of social practices and historical change affect the generation of meanings? What are the illustrator’s loyalties? The dynamic development of multimodal (polysemiotic) texts leads to the reinterpretation and expansion of Jakobson’s classic category of intersemiotic translation. It is used in the study of visual literature, which raises methodological questions as to whether book illustrating is a translational activity. Today intersemiotic translation seems much closer to adaptation or “resemiotization” (O’Halloran et al. 2016) than to interlingual translation proper. Thus the study of discrepancies, shifts and changes, rather than the pursuit of equivalence, may offer new insights. A case in point is the artistic picturebook Jak ciężko być królem [How Hard It Is to Be a King] (2018) by Iwona Chmielewska, who provides a contemporary visual interpretation of the almost century-old King Matt the First (Król Maciuś Pierwszy) (1923). Written by a Polish-Jewish pedagogue, educator and writer, Janusz Korczak’s poignant and multilayered novel about a child king is a recognizable children’s classic with four English translations available. Drawing on desrciptive translation studies, the aim of the article is to analyze the picturebook at hand as an intersemiotic translation, mapped against the existing translation series. What are its translational and pictorial dominant features? What characterizes the artist’s multimodal strategies in representing the source text? How is the unsettling or ambiguous content mediated? Last but not least, the articles focuses on interdiscursivity to inquire how the societal and institutional context as well as the discourse of memory surrounding Janusz Korczak’s death in the Holocaust affect the meaning and where and how they ‘place’ the author and his child hero.

Metaphor in Literary Prose and its Cross-Cultural Transfer: A Case Study of Jinpingmei and its Two English Versions

The classic novel Jinpingmei constitutes a rich source of metaphorical expressions, which poses a challenge to interlingual translation. This paper conducts a descriptive analysis of the translation of metaphor from Chinese to English, taking Jinpingmei and its two English versions as the case study. It attempts to examine how and to what extent metaphorical language in the novel is mediated and rendered in the target language, to look at the effect of translative strategies used on the target text and its readers, and to pinpoint factors that motivate translators’ choices. Following the paradigm of descriptive translation studies, the paper resorts to a mixed method design which combines qualitative and quantitative data analysis. The results show that translators adopt a wide variety of transferring strategies to handle metaphors identified in the novel, ranging from deletion to paraphrasing and completely retaining metaphors. While metaphors are all preserved in Roy’s translation, there are many that suffer from loss or displacement to varying degrees in Egerton’s translation. Translators’ choice of different strategies exerts an effect on the images, figurative senses, metaphoricity, and cultural implications of individual metaphors in the source text, which exhibits their disparate considerations respecting the literariness of the original work and the target recipients’ needs and tastes. Finally, the present study demonstrates that metaphor translation is mainly influenced by individual translators’ translatorial skopos as well as their weighing up of prioritizing certain metaphors over others in the text in relation to its intention.

On engliscre spræce? Old English and the politics of intralingual translation

The idea that translation from Old to Modern English involves “updating” within the same language—rather than what Jakobson calls “translation proper”—is a pervasive one. In this article I argue that this “interlingual fallacy” still conditions the ways in which the language and early medieval period are represented in the public sphere today. Focussing on two high-profile engagements with the language—Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf and Paul Kingsnorth’s shadow language in his novel The Wake—, I argue that the intralingual fallacy has had the dual effect of marginalising the act of translation as a site of cultural exchange, and limiting the possibilities for interrogating those productive issues it shares with interlingual translation. Several examples are given of recent projects that set out to problematise this narrative of intralingual transfer, and that present a way forward for further integrating Old English into the contemporary discourse on translation.

Инклюзивный язык в художественном переводе (на материале переводов романа А. Кристи «Десять негритят»)

This article performs a comparative analysis of diachronic translations of Agatha Christie’s novel Ten Little Niggers/Ten Little Indians/And Then There Were None (intralingual translations into American English and interlingual translations into French, German and Russian) in terms of adequacy of literary translation and following the norms of inclusive language. The paper found that the intralingual translation into American English is a culturally determined adaptation of the original text excluding culture-specific concepts perceived differently in the American culture. While classical interlingual translations of the novel into German, French and Russian follow the norms of adequacy and equivalence, modern interlingual translations reflect the desire of translators to make various lexical and lexico-grammatical transformations in order to avoid invective vocabulary, which often leads to the loss of text-forming dominants of the novel (the modern translation into French is such an example). Further, the importance of preserving the intertext, which reflects the author’s artistic intention, is demonstrated. The symbolic dominants of the novel are considered here in their historical and sociocultural context. It is concluded that these dominants are closely related to the collective ideas about racial differences in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Moreover, it is shown that following new language norms in translation should not violate the unity of a literary work; hence the importance of conveying the author’s intention and the historical and sociocultural context of the work. Finally, recommendations are given to translators as to finding a balance between the requirements of political correctness and adequacy of translation.

Translatability, modeling, otherness and the intersemiotic spaces of meaning

Abstract What comes to the attention immediately in translation is the relationship between the initial text and the destination text. In interlingual translation these two texts belong to two different historical-natural languages, the transition is from the verbal to the verbal. But the interpretive trajectory transits through multiple sign systems, never exclusively verbal. Interlingual translation involves the verbal signs of historical-natural languages, but is also of the semiotic order. Signs call for interpretants. In terms of Ogden and Richard’s meaning triangle, to reach from the sign to what it means without passing through the apex representing the act of interpretation is not possible. Evoking authors who have contributed to understanding the semiotic nature of interpretive work and signifying processes, implied in the simplest act of translation, my task here is to evidence just how semiotically complex the work of translation is even in the case of interlingual translation.

Postcolonial Literature and Translation: A Grounded Commonality of Multiculturalism

The study theorizes that multiculturalism is a grounded commonality and a contact zone of postcolonial literature and translation. It concentrates on some of the common cultural aspects in the fields. Therefore, this study aims to emphasize the multiculturalism of postcolonial literary text compared to some multicultural features of translation. The study looks into how the cultural differences travel in the inter-lingual translation of the postcolonial literature from English to African. In postcolonial literature, the cultural aspect plays the role of otherness in the text and shows the ethical aspect of translation as it reveals the presence of others. During translation, cultural difference is, therefore, the substance of postcolonial literature. The paper recommends studying the inter-lingual translation of postcolonial literature in terms of the paradoxical status of monolingual literature in which cultural difference is seen as a spectral presence of other languages.

Translating spaces and memories of migration: the case of the Red Star Line Museum

ABSTRACT This article examines the construction and transmission of memory in the Red Star Line Museum in Antwerp, Belgium. The museum, which opened in 2013 in the historic buildings of the shipping company, presents itself as a unique lieu de mémoire, harbouring the stories of the many Europeans who migrated across the Atlantic in the early 20th century. We concentrate on a Translation Studies perspective to chart and interconnect the various levels of memory-work in this museum. Drawing on broader definitions of translation as cultural transfer and mnemonic mediation, and linking these to the narrow concept of translation ‘proper’, our analysis demonstrates how the museum functions as a local repository for transnational memories. Moreover, it shows how the museum becomes a catalyst for the further travelling of these memories. The focus lies on the museum’s use of spatiality to translate personal memories of migration for a contemporary audience. It is the physical sensation of shared spaces – authentic or reconstructed – and the palimpsestic movement through those spaces that help visitors gain a tangible sense of what happened there. Interlingual translations of gallery texts are vital for the worldwide circulation of the stories, but occasionally cause shifts in the spatial–temporal framework.

Continental England: Form, Translation, and Chaucer in the Hundred Year's War by Elizaveta Strakhov

Reviewed by: Continental England: Form, Translation, and Chaucer in the Hundred Year's War by Elizaveta Strakhov Jeffery Moser Elizaveta Strakhov. Continental England: Form, Translation, and Chaucer in the Hundred Year's War. Ohio State UP, 2022. 268 p. Poetic form as a cultural road map is the basis for Elizaveta Strakhov's extensive research that bridges debates about the socio-political fallout and cultural impact from England's armed conflicts with France in the late Middle Ages. In Continental England: Form, Translation, and Chaucer in the Hundred [End Page 348] Year's War, scholars discover how the author applies the often neglected and discounted observation that good things can come from bad—the silver lining from events and conditions that alter an old world may, and indeed often do, forge new political and cultural connections in a new world. This is the heart of the "reparative translation" model that identifies how literary translation helped rebuild community and restore unity for the European Continent and England during the early fourteenth century and into the fifteenth. Medievalist historians and literary studies scholars will welcome Strakhov's attendance to the late medieval lyric genre known as formes fixes, which covers a variety of emerging poetic forms in pre-Chaucerian times (1300-1400), including two eventually popularized lyric forms of the lament—particularly the complainte--and the ballade, along with other poetic forms. However, these same scholars may take some mild academic umbrage as to whether, theoretically, any firm sense of what counts as "English Literature" existed then, due to a lack of two things: a stable language and continuous works that could be described as "literary" and that were passed down to and replicated or executed through multiple generations. Fortunately, Strakhov anticipated this potential criticism. She identifies specific lyric types in works by ascribed authors, which were readily recognizable to medieval readers according to prosodic features of stanzaic number, stanzaic length, and rhyme scheme. In fact, this is how many manuscripts from the period that have survived to this day came into existence, by medieval narrators and copyists who meticulously translated English, French, and Latin and transcribed verse structure and forms onto the "page." In this way, Continental England examines the phenomenon that poets and scribes "unexpectedly and highly self-consciously" made ties, affinities, and connections through poetry that bind Francophone Europe together (5). The text proves that medieval European historians and scholars of medieval language and literature would do well to look closely at medieval translation and those translators and scribes who engaged with form and interlingual translation work. For Strakhov, "form blows open the stakes and reach of translational literary endeavors" (5). The advantages of attending to form gave her license to consider major authors and texts in entirely new combinations by defining form as "reproducible units of meaning" (15). This, in turn, allowed the [End Page 349] author to methodically approach and dissemble Anglo-French literary relations to parallel, if not counter, the dirth of existing scholarship that abounds and claims that the Hundred Years' War (c. 1137-1453) left England and France more isolated from one another and more bitter and acrimonious. Instead, Strakhov cites English poet Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) as the most evidential and leading practitioner of formes fixes. Chaucer was a prolific translator of verse structure and verse form that contributed to a sense of renewal, less anxiety, and more calm between France and England. Chaucer must not be seen only as a great English poet and author, but also as an avid and astute translator. His works of versification and meter accommodated and helped to civilize communities upon the Continent and in England that were disenfranchised and fragmented from the disputes and armed clashes between the English royal House of Plantagenet and the French royal House of Valois. Of course, not lost upon any literary student, is that Chaucer, himself, was a trusted and worthy civil servant. He was able to pursue and sustain his literary and scientific interests while pursuing a career as a diplomat, courtier, and member of parliament. Too, the relationship and correspondence between the French poet and composer Phillipe de Vitry and the Italian sonneteer Petrarch, along with their literary...

Visual Translation of Traditional Chinese Costume Culture

The interpretation and dissemination of Chinese traditional costume culture to foreign countries has been carried out mainly through interlingual translation, based on the conversion of linguistic symbols. However, the text-based translation strategy is limited by its original limitations, resulting in the target audience in a heterogeneous culture not being able to interpret the cultural connotations behind traditional Chinese costumes accurately. That’s why a large number of cultural elements originated in traditional costumes in the original language being diluted in communication, which is named as the phenomenon of culture dilution. Confronted with this phenomenon, the diverse visual symbol system has, to a certain extent, compensated for the lexical gap in language translation and provided a space for interpreting the unique cultural elements in traditional Chinese costume culture, becoming an essential means of promoting traditional costume culture.

A cognitive inquiry into similarities and differences between translation and paraphrase: Evidence from eye movement data

Intralingual translation has long been peripheral to empirical studies of translation. Considering its many similarities with interlingual translation, also described as translation proper, we adopted eye-tracking technology to investigate the cognitive process during translation and paraphrase, an exemplification of intralingual translation. Twenty-four postgraduate students were required to perform four types of tasks (Chinese paraphrase, English-Chinese translation, English paraphrase, Chinese-English translation) for source texts (ST) of different genres. Their eye movements were recorded for analysis of the cognitive effort and attention distribution pattern. The result demonstrated that: (1) Translation elicited significantly greater cognitive efforts than paraphrase; (2) Differences between translation and paraphrase on cognitive effort were modulated by text genre and target language; (3) Translation and paraphrase did not differ strikingly in terms of attention distribution. This process-oriented study confirmed higher cognitive efforts in inter-lingual translation, which was likely due to the additional complexity of bilingual transfer. Moreover, it revealed significant modulating effects of text genre and target language.

Crossing borders and boundaries: Translation ecosystems in international business

The field of International Business (IB) has traditionally focused on the crossing of national boundaries. In this Perspective, we argue that organizational, knowledge domain, and language boundaries are equally important for understanding translation activities in cross-border business. We integrate three kinds of translation (organizational translation and knowledge translation from Organization Studies and interlingual translation from Translation Studies) to deepen our understanding of core IB phenomena and pose new research questions. We introduce the framework of a translation ecosystem for integrating the micro perspective of translating agents, the meso perspective of organizational units, and the macro perspective of the larger social and linguistic contexts that influence translation. This framework allows IB scholars to identify important but invisible boundaries in cross-border business. The translation ecosystem requires the kind of multi-level research that has been recognized as crucial for taking the field forward and offers the potential for making contributions both to IB and to translation research beyond the disciplinary boundaries of IB.

The Ways of Testing the Quality of Inter-Lingual Translation For The Language Leaners

Translation is one of the main aspects in understanding and learning second language. In https://www.gala-global.org said: translation is the communication of meaning from one language (the source) to another language (the target).It is often said as unimportant thing in learning second language or considered as secondary skill. Actually, translation must be supposed as the primary skill for the second language. They must know the meanings of the words or the sentences as a whole. The method of research is on the basis of library research and technical activities done by the undergraduate students. The technique of approach is done in two ways: 1. An approach to the lexical items, 2. An Approach to the Oral and Written Translation. The result of this research is that when one translates text from language A into language B, a different translator then turns the B text back into A, and the resulting A text is compared with the original A text . If the test is virtually identical, it is strong evidence that the original translation was of high quality. Inter-lingual translation should be a basic skill for mastering L2. The conclusion is that translation, oral or written translation, must be different from those who are already fluent in L2. It must practically be easier the written translation than the oral translation for both, the beginners and the fluent ones. Keywords: Ways of testing, translation, quality L1, L2.

The Influence of Background Knowledge on Students’ Translation Results: An Interlingual Translation

This research aims to identify whether students’ background knowledge influenced the translated texts from the source language (SL) into the target language (TL). This research employs descriptive qualitative method design throught the use of semi-structured interviews and observation in one of the state universities in east Indonesia. The participants in this research included 30 students. The documents as students' target texts were used as primary data and the transcripts of semi-structured interviews were used as supporting data. To Analyse the data, the researchers used qualitative ways. Data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing or verification were used to reveal students’ background knowledge of translation. The data showed that most of the students need background knowledge in the translation of source language into the target language. These reasons confirm that there is a close relationship between background knowledge and translation. It means that in an interlingual translation, even if translators are bilinguals and master the grammar of a language, background knowledge of a text should also be dominated. Moreover, background knowledge is not a single problem for translators, there are also other problems that were found in students’ translation namely new words, complex sentences, reading comprehension, and expression in the target language.

Translation as an intertextual process in the context of rewriting

Yenidenyazma kavramı, edebiyat, metinlerarasılık gibi alanlarda etkisini gösteren ve araştırılan bir kavramdır. Metinlerarasılık çalışmalarında, bir metnin kendinden önceki başka bir metinden belirli yöntemlerle gerek doğrudan gerekse dolaylı bir biçimde ifadeler taşıması sonucunda iki metin arasında oluşan ilişki bağlamında ele alınan bu kavram, son zamanlarda çeviribilim alanında da kendini göstermektedir. Çeviri sürecinde erek metin, kaynak metnin biçimsel düzeyde bir çeşit yeniden yazması olarak kabul edilmektedir. Süreç sonunda ortaya çıkan erek metin ile hareket noktası olan kaynak metin arasında bu bağlamda metinlerarası bir ilişkinin söz konusu olduğunu söyleyebiliriz. Özellikle de dillerarası çeviri bağlamında düşündüğümüzde, belirli bir dil dizgesinde yazılmış kaynak metin, başka bir dil dizgesinde yeniden yazılmaktadır. Bu yenidenyazma süreci sonunda ortaya çıkan erek metin, kaynak metinle aynı içeriği, mesajı, anlamı ve etkiyi taşıyan fakat biçimsel olarak kaynak metin dizgesinden farklılık gösteren bir metindir. Çünkü dillerarası çeviride çevirmenin amacı, kaynak metni başka bir dile aynı anlamı, etkiyi ve içeriği verebilecek şekilde aktarmaktır. Böylece hem metinlerarasılıkta hem de çeviride yenidenyazma ile biçimsel bir dönüşüm söz konusudur. Buradan hareketle, yenidenyazma kavramını metinlerarasılık ve çeviri sürecinin ortak noktası olarak değerlendirebiliriz. Böylece, her iki süreçte de var olan yenidenyazma (dönüşüm) sayesinde metinlerarasılıktaki altmetin ve anametin (üstmetin) ile çevirideki kaynak ve erek metin arasında bir benzetme yapmak mümkündür. Bu çalışmanın amacı, metinlerarasılık ve çeviri ilişkisine yenidenyazma bağlamında yaklaşıp çevirinin metinlerarası bir süreç olduğunu farklı bir açıdan göstermek ve her iki alana ait metin kavramları arasında ilişki kurmaktır.

Self-Back-Translation by Haruki Murakami: A Self-Translator’s Perspective

Self-back-translation is an uncommon practice in which a bilingual author retranslates the already translated text of their writing back into the original source language. A good example of self-back-translation comes from one of the short stories by Haruki Murakami, a renowned Japanese author and translator, who back-translated the English translation of his short story “Rēdāhōzen [Lederhosen]” into Japanese and published it as a new version. This peculiar practise of self-back-translation has led a handful of translation researchers to probe into some of the ongoing debates in translation studies from new perspectives—e.g., to examine the relationship between intralingual and interlingual translation, the originality and translation, the translator’s (in)visibility, and more. Asking questions such as these, this paper examines the nature and purpose of self-back-translation and the role of translation in general, particularly from a self-translator’s perspective, by Murakami’s self-back-translation with another example by a self-translator. The study has found that much could get lost while going through the filtration process of self-back-translation, but much could be gained. Whether it is interlingual or intralingual translation, the end-product of this process could be an improvement from the source text—i.e., the translation sometimes exceeds the original. This is why some writers self-(back)-translate.

The Role of the Student in the Literary Translation Classroom: A Pedagogical Approach Towards a New Learning Perspective

Despite the full involvement of students in their learning process, the translation classroom still faces challenges associated with the implementation of traditional teaching schemes. Ideally, students should be invited to reflect and exchange perspectives that help them internalize the different stages that take place during the stages of the translation process. Among these, intuition and deduction come into play and lead to the creation of a habit through induction that allows the students to face the translation problems arising from the text in a satisfactory manner, thus contributing to the development of their translation competence. This proposal is designed within a framework of active learning in which students stop being spectators in the classroom to become the protagonist of their own learning process by being continuously exposed to situations that demand higher-order intellectual operations. The methodology employed in class will take place in three different stages: comprehension of the source text, interlingual translation and an individual assessment of the target text. This three-fold learning strategy favors an active attitude in students and compels them to perform activities effectively. We believe that this proposal will help us achieve our main objective, which is to help our students delve into the complexities and problems associated with the field of literary translation while fostering the foundations of collaborative learning in the classroom.

Literature Translation through Discourse and Register Analysis Approach: A Systematic Review

This scoping review studies how translation works through discourse and register analysis approach. In translation, different translation types have been successfully practiced. In interlingual translation, translating means beyond the word-for-word translation. In literature translation, the translation process demands improvement, especially in classical literature that needs to be understood in a target foreign culture. This systematic review aims to study how translation processes work and how discourse and register analysis approaches can improve translation products. Discourse analysis deals with how language communicates and holds its social and power relations. Discourse analysis aims to understand and investigate sentences and discourse through their underlying social and cultural context. Through the metafunctions of language, register variables such as the field, tenor, and mode, as well as through comparative analysis of the source text and the target text, translation products could be more efficient for the target audience. Hence, it can ensure translation quality. The conclusions of this systematic review could lead to future studies to improve translation quality through discourse and register analysis approach.

Disruptions in Translational Intertextuality across Multilingual Translations of a Historical Inscription

This is the first research study to investigate translational intertextuality across multilingual translations of a historical inscription through retranslation and relay translation. It aims to offer a translational chain by linking the studied translations that involve different translational strategies and reveals intra- and multi-lingual alterations within the collection of the analyzed works. The corpus of the study consists of six academic works – on the interlingual translations of a historical inscription in Alanya, Türkiye – in five different languages, including the source language. To analyze the corpus, qualitative content analysis and purposeful sampling are applied. It is revealed that the translations tend to change their textuality through semantic alterations and application of translational phenomena, and thanks to the alterations, it is seen that the source text evolved through translations. It is suggested that translational intertextuality has a crucial role in the creation of new texts in a target language based on a translation, and the studied corpus illustrated that any disruptions in translational intertextuality affect the other rings of the translation chain, directly or indirectly helping to disseminate false knowledge or/and foreignizing the resultant text for the target audience. Moreover, it is highlighted that an ulterior translation can be affected by these disruptions; therefore, the disrupted prospective translational intertextuality could influence the intertextual ties across disciplines established by translations.

TRANSLATION AS TRANSFORMATION: ON THE TREATMENT OF PUNS AND WORDPLAY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF JINPINGMEI

The novel Jinpingmei is rife with various forms of language play, which produces special stylistic or poetic effects and contributes to characterization. Language play in Jinpingmei gives rise to cognitive effects on the reader and poses a serious challenge to interlingual translation. However, it has hitherto received little attention from translation studies researchers. The issue of how different forms of language play are treated in English translations of Jinpingmei has not been touched upon. This article aims to fill the gap by analyzing and discussing the translation of puns and wordplay in Jinpingmei. It takes a cognitive-pragmatic view and draws upon a relevance-theoretic approach to examine the way in which puns and wordplay is rendered into the target language. Within the relevance-theoretic framework, translation is viewed as an “interpretive use of language” and the relation between source and target texts is based on interpretive resemblance rather than equivalence (Sperber & Wilson, 1986; Gutt, 1991). The analysis undertaken in the article is based on two English translations of Jinpingmei. Following Delabastita’s (1996) taxonomy of puns and transferring strategies, the article examines the translators’ translation strategies and assesses the degree of relevance and interpretive resemblance achieved in the two translations vis-à-vis the source text. Research results demonstrate that most puns and wordplay are lost or misconstrued in translation and that the translators exhibit different patterns in their approaches to translating wordplay in Jinpingmei. Moreover, the degree of interpretive resemblance achieved in the two translations differs significantly. The article concludes that the translators’ choice is influenced by translational skopos, the sociocultural context of translation and reception, and the (un)translatability of wordplay effected by the linguistic and cultural difference between Chinese and English.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0935/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Despairing of Despair, Living for Today and the Day after Tomorrow: Reflections on Naoko Saito'sAmerican Philosophy in Translation

Despairing of Despair, Living for Today and the Day after Tomorrow: Reflections on Naoko Saito's<i>American Philosophy in Translation</i>