Translation Norms Research Articles

(A)bridging the Gap – A study of the norms and laws in the intralingual translation of the novel And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

In the last decade, intralingual translation has started to gain momentum amongst a number of translation academics. Nevertheless, some types of intralingual translation remain largely undiscovered, such as the process of abridgement in the production of simplified versions of classic literary works (i.e. graded readers). This article subjects three chapters of the abridged version of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie to qualitative analysis using Descriptive Translation Studies theory. The aim is to contribute to bridging a research gap in Translation Studies by examining the norms and laws governing the process of abridgement. Translation norms and laws are detected by situating the source and the target texts in their respective socio-cultural backgrounds and by analysing translation shifts. Relevant shifts are identified by means of a check-list of features elaborated on the basis of theory on graded readers, which classifies them into lexical, structural and information shifts. The results of the analysis showcase the vast research potential of intralingual translation for language learning purposes.

Optional Shifts in Existential Presupposition in Two Arabic Translations of A Farewell to Arms: A Shift into a More Narratorial Involvement and an Approximated Reader

This paper examines the optional shift in existential presupposition in two Arabic translations of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. In particular, it seeks to identify both how the shift occurs and how it affects the stylistic features of the translated narrative, namely point of view and readers’ interactive relationship with the text. The ultimate goal is to contribute to the research into the stylistic aspects of English-Arabic fiction translation and the alleged norms of translation. The findings reveal a tendency to increase the level of definiteness of the referring expressions and to claim more of the reader’s assumed knowledge of the text, suggesting a more approximated and involved reader compared to that of the original. There is also a tendency to bring the narrator and characters closer to each other in the psychological space and to increase the narrator’s subjectivity in the translated text. This tendency reflects the translator’s attempts to reconstruct the realities depicted in the original narrative during the translation process. Existential presupposition may be better seen in the translated fiction as a tool translators use to enhance the passage of information to a reader who is often linguistically and psychologically remote from the original work..

Modernity Retranslated: Nationalism as a Tool of Culture in a Complex Polysystem

The purpose of this paper is to problematize comparative modelling of descriptive retranslation research with respect to nationalism in a polysystem. In this light, it starts by questioning a tool of analysis, i.e., ‘non-(re)translation,’ that studies resort to as a nominal concept yet underneath imply opposing views of philosophy of language. This foregrounding of the concept requires meticulous contextualization in order to deconstruct the systemic stratification of a specific period. The corpus comprises four translations (plus a reprint) of the prominent Ottoman and Turkish historian Uriel Heyd’s Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: The Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp , originally published in 1954. Given that the initial translation in the corpus appeared shortly before the 1980 coup d’état in Turkey and the most recent translation was published soon after the induction of the democratic initiative process in 2009, the descriptive study analyzes the translation norms and strategies of each translated work and looks for an answer as to whether the initial norm corresponds to translation policy and how it governs the textual-linguistic norms in turn. In addition, the empirical analysis serves the purpose of theorizing the workings of national category in a complex polysystem. Thus, instrumentalization of a ‘national’ symbol can elucidate the manner in which ideational labor is deployed to produce energy in heterogeneity. Following the theoretical and empirical analyses, questions with regards to future comparative analysis and modelling are raised.

Widokówka z Paryża. O polskich przekładach Madeline Ludwiga Bemelmansa

Artykuł dotyczy jedynych dotychczasowych przekładów Madeline (1939) Ludwiga Bemelmansa na język polski, które zostają zaprezentowane na tle rozważań o bio­grafii i pozostałej twórczości pisarza. Tłumaczenia wykonane przez Zofię Kierszys (1998) i Małgorzatę Pietrzyk (2015) pozwalają polskiemu czytelnikowi zapoznać się z twórczością anglojęzycznego autora literatury dziecięcej. Autorka tekstu do­wodzi, że różne strategie obrane przez dwie tłumaczki mogą wpływać na odbiór picturebooka, który w Polsce pojawił się prawie sześćdziesiąt lat po amerykań­skiej premierze. Zestawiając ze sobą oryginał i polskie przekłady dzieła, ukazuje również na konkretnym przykładzie ewolucję norm tłumaczeniowych i tendencji translatorskich.

Cinema, música e tradução: Pedro Almodóvar legendado em Portugal

Desde o nascimento do cinema, a música faz parte dos filmes. Na obra de Pedro Almodóvar, a trilha sonora ocupa um lugar central, falando das personagens e participando nas narrativas. O objetivo final desta pesquisa é constatar (ou não) a existência de tendências ou normas de tradução no caso específico das músicas que integram os filmes, seguindo a distinção estabelecida por Toury (1985) entre normas preliminares e normas operacionais. Partimos do estudo de um corpus composto pelas últimas oito longas-metragens do realizador espanhol ”“ desde Todo sobre mi madre (1999), que obteve o Óscar para o melhor filme em língua estrangeira, até ao último filme estreado em Portugal, Julieta (2016). Consideramos que aspetos como a intercompreensão e a proximidade linguística e territorial poderão influenciar as soluções adotadas pelos tradutores nas legendagens. A pesquisa nos permite concluir que não existe homogeneidade nas propostas de tradução adotadas e, portanto, não há uma clara tendência de tradução das músicas uma vez que apenas um terço das canções são legendadas, o que inevitavelmente irá ocasionar perdas nas nuances e nas conotações veiculadas pelas músicas. Por último, quando contrastamos os nossos resultados com os apresentados em outras investigações sobre a tradução da obra do realizador para outras línguas e culturas, constatamos que também não existe uniformidade nos dados obtidos.

Interaction of translatorial and authorial identites of Tomris Uyar

Çeviri metinlerin özgün metinlere kıyasla
 “ikincil” konumda gören genel kanının aksine, yazar-çevirmen Tomris Uyar,
 çevirilerinin öykülerini, öykülerinin ise çevirilerini bütünlemesini istediğini
 dile getirmiştir. Onun bu görüşünden yola çıkan bu çalışma, bu durumu görmeyi,
 dolayısıyla da Uyar’ın yazar ve çevirmen kimlikleri arasındaki etkileşimleri
 ortaya koymayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu amaç doğrultusunda, çalışmanın birinci
 bölümünde çevirinin kültürleri şekillendirme ve kültür planlamasındaki yeri göz
 önünde bulundurularak, Türk edebiyatının üç farklı döneminde yazar ve çevirmen
 kimlikleri arasındaki etkileşimler Itamar Even-Zohar ve Gideon Toury’nin
 araştırmaları ışığında incelenmiştir. İkinci bölümde Tomris Uyar’ın “yazar” ve
 “çevirmen” kimlikleri irdelenmiş ve bu iki kimlik arasında var olan çeşitli
 etkileşimler tartışılmıştır. Uyar’ın çeviri üzerine yazdığı yazılar ve
 söyleşilerde verdiği yanıtlardan yola çıkarak izlediği çeviri süreçleri ve
 aldığı çevirmen kararları Gideon Toury’nin çeviri normları bağlamında
 sorgulanmıştır. Uyar’ın “öncül norm” olarak “yeterli” çeviri yapmayı
 benimsediği görülmüştür. “Süreç öncesi normlar” bağlamında ise “ortak çeviri”
 ve “ara dilden çeviri” gibi farklı türlerde çeviriler yaptığı saptanmıştır.
 Üçüncü bölümde Amerikalı öykü yazarı Flannery O’Connor’ın dört öyküsünün
 yazar-çevirmen Tomris Uyar tarafından yapılan çevirileri erek ve kaynak
 metinler karşılaştırılarak, Uyar’ın çevirilerinde benimsediği dil kullanım
 tercihleri açısından incelenmiştir. Bu karşılaştırmalı incelemenin ardından
 Uyar’ın O’Connor çevirileriyle aynı döneme denk düşen kendi yazdığı dört öykü
 ele alınmış ve benzer dil kullanım tercihlerinin bu öykülerde de görülüp
 görülmediği sorgulanmıştır. Çevirilerinde gözlemlenen dil kullanım tercihlerine
 Uyar’ın kendi öykülerinde de rastlanmıştır.

<em>El tiempo entre costuras</em>: análisis contrastivo entre la subtitulación profesional y la de fansubbing al chino

Este artículo aborda el fenómeno del fansubbing en China, centrándose en la traducción del español al chino, una combinación lingüística poco estudiada hasta el momento en subtitulación. El objetivo principal es hacer un análisis contrastivo entre la subtitulación profesional y la hecha por fansubbers del español al chino a partir de un estudio de caso. Para ello hemos tomado dos versiones diferentes de la traducción de la serie española El tiempo entre costuras: la profesional emitida por el canal nacional CCTV y otra realizada por el grupo de fansubbing YYeTs. En el análisis hemos examinado tanto elementos formales como traductológicos y hemos observado que las dos versiones presentan similitudes y diferencias, si bien no se puede establecer una tendencia clara en cuanto a normas de traducción en el eje de la domesticación y la extranjerización.

Comparison and Contrast of the Translations of Gone With the Wind Based on Norms

In this article, by using Gideon Toury’s theory of translation studies and focusing on norm, the author intends to analyze two commonly accepted editions, Fu’s version and Huang’s version of Gone with the Wind. Consequently, it is proved that controlled by a specific translation norm, translators tend to take a specific translation strategy, so when evaluating all translated texts, the translation norms at that time should also be taken into consideration besides some set standards.

Reflection of Translation Strategies and Translation Norms in the Translation of Persian into English tourism-related websites

<p>The importance of tourism for the economies of the countries is indisputable. In line with this, websites introducing touristy landmarks as well as presenting general information as regards a country play an important role. It is well agreed that translating such websites would be a daunting task and evaluating them is then a need. To fulfil this, the current research was established to address in general the translation of Persian into English tourism-related websites. Toury’s Model was adopted to investigate the corpus of the study. The results proved that the most dominant strategy on the tourism related websites was omission, followed by manipulation of segmentation and euphemism. Also it was found that website translators used different strategies in transferring tourism words and sentences. The findings of this research showed that there are deficiencies in terms of norms and strategies. Further professional work is needed to boost the quality of the tourism related websites in the studied areas. </p>

Epistemologia do traduzir: normas de uso e sua descrição 'a parte post'

Discutem-se aqui traços fundamentais das condições de possibilidade para ato tradutório, como reflexão teórica de cunho pragmático e perspectivista, entre o essencialismo da tradição e o relativismo pós-moderno. Tais aspectos remetem a uma epistemologia do traduzir tributária, dentre outros, da epistemologia do uso desenvolvida por Arley Moreno a partir da terapia conceitual de Ludwig Wittgenstein e da noção de estilo de Gilles Gaston Granger. A discussão parte do conceito de normas tradutórias de Gideon Toury e duas críticas que lhe foram dirigidas, sob diferentes perspectivas: (1) sociologia da tradução; (2) desconstrução. Pano de fundo argumentativo é o entendimento de que a abordagem de Toury é plenamente compatível com a concepção de linguagem do Wittgenstein tardio, não somente na aplicação da noção wittgensteiniana de semelhanças de família ao campo da tradução, mas também na forma como mobiliza o conceito de norma subjacente ao uso que se quer descrever. Defende-se que as normas tradutórias no sentido de Toury explicitam o caráter a parte post que Granger atribui aos fenômenos do estilo e que Moreno investiga na função transcendental da linguagem. Por fim, sugere-se que os polos adequação vs. aceitabilidade na proposta de Toury revelam dois momentos lógicos no processo tradutório: analogia inicial (entre o que é diferente) e acomodação digital na chegada.

Norms in Translation: A Case Study of Telugu

Norms in Translation: A Case Study of Telugu

Handling Semantic Repetition when Translating Arabic Short Stories: The Case of Excerpt from The Book of The Dead

The translation of literary texts into another language is undoubtedly a challenging task, especially when dealing with a combination of languages that are linguistically, stylistically and culturally different. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the translation of one of the devices of creative writing used in the construction of Arabic short stories, namely semantic repetition. The analysis is based on comparing the occurrences of semantic repetition in the Arabic short story صفحة من كتاب الموتى Excerpt from The Book of The Dead with their translations in the target text. This literary work, by Ahmad Faqih, has been selected for analysis mainly because it contains a significant number of repetition instances that serve various pragmatic functions. The main concepts and aspects of Toury’s theory of norms and other taxonomies of translation strategies will be used to identify translation shifts and strategies adopted by the translators. The analysis reveals that the translators resorted to four main strategies when translating semantic repetition into English: retention, compression, grammatical shift and deletion. The analysis also reveals that instances of semantic repetition are often omitted or modified in the English translation, and consequently their functions are sacrificed. This will certainly affect the representation of the original literary work and offer the target readers a slightly different version of the text. Keywords: Semantic repetition; literary translation; translation norms; Arabic short stories; translation strategies

Starzenie się przekładów: zmiany języka czy norm tłumaczeniowych?

What can Make Translations Appear Older: Changes in Language or in Translation Norms?
 The article attempts to address the phenomenon of aging translations, especially literary ones, which has not been sufficiently analysed in translation research. The description is based on the framework of double dependence of a translation: dependence on the original on the one hand, and on the communicative requirements of reception on the other. Based on the classification of texts according to the diachronic aspect (Jäger), one can attribute translation aging to two reasons: to the evolution of the target language together with the changes in the adopted way of constructing literary narration, which is influenced by changes of literary epochs, and to the change in translation norms. These two factors are illustrated with the materials drawn from early translations of Russian literary works into Polish, especially those by Anton Chekhov. As it turns out, even though translation units can be archaic on all levels of language, the process of translation aging is determined to the greatest extent by semantic factors. The analysis of changes in old translation norms shows a high degree of variability in translation techniques used in early translations. The classification of the types of translation norms by Komissarov was applied in the analysis to prove that translation aging is mainly due to changes in the target language norms of formulating translations, especially the pragmatic norm.

Analysis of the Translations of Gone with the Wind Based on Gideon Toury’s Theory of Norm

Since there are many translated editions of Gone with the Wind, there emerged many disputes and comments towards different translators’ different products. In this article, the author intends to analyze Gideon Toury’s theory of translation studies and focuses on norm to show that controlled by a specific translation norm, translators tend to take a specific translation strategy, which would be helpful for readers to better understand different translated editions.

Agnes Blake Poor e os poemas Pan-American

The considerations and arguments of this article were developed based on the information printed in Diário de Notícias, a newspaper from Salvador, Bahia, in Brazil, which states that Agnes Blake Poor was the first North-American woman to translate Brazilian literature into English. Poor edited the anthology Pan-American Poems (1918) that brought a collection of Latin-American poems in English translation. Brazil is represented by Gonçalves Dias, Bruno Seabra, the Portuguese Francisco Manuel de Nascimento, and a gypsy folk-song. Using the theoretical and methodological tools from Descriptive Translation Studies, the objective of this article is to analyse the political and literary dimensions in which the anthology was published in the United States and compare the source and target poems to pinpoint the translational norms. The results show that the governmental translation project was aimed to foster Pan-Americanism and to unite the Americas during war time, which was key to determine the choice of the poems and the translation norms.

Testing the retranslation hypothesis for audiovisual translation: the films of Volker Schlöndorff subtitled into English

ABSTRACTThis article uses the Descriptive Translation Studies framework to examine the English subtitles for two German films directed by Volker Schlöndorff: Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum [The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum], directed in 1975, and Die Blechtrommel [The Tin Drum], from 1979, with a view to testing the earliest formulation of the retranslation hypothesis. Using the concept of translational norms as one of its main heuristic tools, this research examines an audiovisual corpus consisting of five different sets of DVD subtitles from the two films: three from Die Blechtrommel, dating from 1995, 2002 and 2010, and two from Katharina Blum, dated 2003 and 2009, thus spanning the era from the advent of digitisation and the beginning of DVD to the rise of TV and film streaming services. The data is analysed to investigate the orientation, in terms of source culture or target culture, of the translation strategies that have been activated by the subtitlers when encountering culture-specific references, and then to pinpoint any diachronic trends that come to the fore. The analysis concludes that the retranslation hypothesis does not apply in this corpus; possible reasons for this finding are discussed.

Normative data for Chinese-English paired associates.

Paired-associate learning is one of the most commonly used paradigms to study human memory. In many of these studies, participants are typically told to learn foreign language-English translations, such as Swahili-English or Lithuanian-English pairs. One limitation of these currently available foreign language-English translation norms is that their foreign languages are based on the alphabetic writing system, thereby preventing researchers from generalizing their findings to languages based on logographic writing systems. In the present study we collected normative data for 160 Chinese-English word pairs. Participants completed three study-test cycles, followed by metacognitive judgments on their learning experience. For each pair, we report recall performance, recall latency, ease of learning, and judgments of learning. A simultaneous multiple regression analysis with frequency (of both the English word and the Chinese character), word length (English), and number of strokes (Chinese) as predictors revealed that a greater number of strokes (or higher visual complexity) for the Chinese characters predicted lower target recall.

From a target population to representative samples of translations and translators

ABSTRACT This study examines representativeness by compiling a sample of translations for textual analyses and a sample of translators for interviews. The process of achieving representativeness is exemplified by reporting on each case. The investigation is grounded in ongoing research on the strategies of literary translation from English to Czech that combines comparative text analyses and biographical interviews. The research objective is to generalise the strategies to the level of Czech literary translation norms. It is thus necessary to work with samples that are (1) representative to allow for such a level of generalisation and (2) of sizes that enable feasible analyses and interviews (i.e. the samples are not too extensive). The applied methodology pursues the fulfilment of both conditions through the three following steps: (a) Determination of the target population size and calculation of the sample size through statistical methods, (b) creation of a representative sample through probability sampling, analysis, and description, and (c) purposive sampling to obtain samples of texts and translators that represent the research intent.

The Norms of Sign Language Interpreting in Turkey: A pre-investigational study on the field

Sign language interpreting is a developing profession, but an emerging study field in Turkey al- though it has been recognized as a profession as of 2006, and sign language interpreters have been hired to offer free interpreting services at social service offices since 2007. Currently, most of the interpreters of Turkish Sign Language are CODAs (Child of Deaf Adults), and there is not a university degree program for training new interpreters. Moreover, it has received little attention by Turkish translation and interpreting scholars so far. This paper aims to share the preliminary findings of an ongoing study in which the author provides detailed information on historical and current dynamics of Turkish Deaf community and sign language interpreting, and explores the current norms of sign language interpreting in Turkey as well as the roles adopted by Turkish sign language interpreters, which have been investigated through semi-structured interviews with seventeen interpreters. This paper, however, does not include the research data and final conclusions since they are still being processed by the researcher, rather it includes the literature review on the role of the sign language interpreter and the theoretical framework which rests on the concept of translation norms of Gideon Toury (1995). The translation norms of Toury (1995) have been adapted to the field of sign language interpreting in Turkey taking a basis of Moira Inghilleri’s work (2003) where she examines interpreted asylum interviews. Although larger research data are limitedly included in this paper due to space restrictions, the current paper indicates that norms govern how sign language interpreters perceive their roles, and how this affects the professional status of the interpreters. This study also aspires to contribute to the field by demonstrating how research and practice on sign language interpreting can benefit from translation theories, especially, in countries like Turkey where establishing sign language interpreting undergraduate programs is a topic of discussion nowadays.

TRANSLATION NORMS OF NEOLOGISM IN SOCIAL MEDIA INTERFACE

Social media interface has been translated into a variety of languages, including Indonesian. This research aims to identify dominant types of neologisms found in social media interface, describe translation procedures applied by translators in translating neologisms and translation norms in neologism translation. This research is qualitative research that was conducted by applying Newmark’s neologism typology and translation procedures (1988) and Toury’s concept of translation norms (1995). The results showed that 1) existing lexical items with new sense (words) is a type of neologism dominantly found in an interface, 2) transference, couplets and through translation are dominant procedures applied by translators which become norms in translating neologism in social media interface. It can be concluded that neologisms found in social media interface have not had equivalents in Indonesian and neologisms cannot be translated since they are terms or jargons used in social media interface.