Translation Norms Research Articles

Norms and gender in simultaneous interpreting: a study of connective markers

This paper focuses on a possible gender-based approach towards norms in simultaneous interpreting by analysing the use of connective markers by male and female interpreters to reveal patterns of interpreters’ handling of translational norms. Drawing on the 2008 subcorpus of EPICG with French source texts and their English and Dutch interpretations, the present study checks whether male and female interpreters translate, omit or add connective markers in the same way. The results are then tested against other parameters which might have an influence such as language, speech delivery rate or the gender of the speaker. It appears that the interpreter’s gender does not affect the use of connective markers. As for the other parameters under study, it seems that only speech delivery rate significantly impacts the interpreters’ performances, especially when it comes to the omission of connective markers.

How are translation norms negotiated?

AbstractTranslation norms are conventionally viewed as forces that regulate translatorial behavior. Yet little is known about how norms are validated, challenged or broken by human agents. This quasi-experimental study of Chinese institutional translation proposes a risk-management model that explains how norms are jointly negotiated among the agents embedded in different institutional milieus. It is argued that norms are validated by the translators who strategically manage and weigh various translation risks pertaining to both the start and target cultures.

Insights into a new paradigm in translation

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the reflection and recreation of the physical landscape in literary texts and in their translations; to explore in what ways nature is represented and, secondly, to discuss aspects of this process in the light of the translational norms proposed by Toury. The focus is the idea that language and culture, the core of literature, are to be transferred to other linguistic and cultural mediums during translation, and constitute the ecological environment of the text. This undertaking assigns to the translator the task of selecting, adapting and recreating this material in the foreign environment. An ecocritical approach will be adopted to explore how and how far this task is materialized by studying a Turkish author Yaşar Kemal’s novel Ortadirek translated as The Wind from the Plain. Yaşar Kemal is regarded as the most ecologically-minded author of Turkish literature and his novels portray nature as the mental landscapes of man, a force under which the constituents of the text are recreated at every linguistic and culture-bound effort of the author. Hence, the main endeavour of this study will be to bring to the surface, with an eco-critical approach, the translational preferences of the translator of Ortadirek and their significance in the recreation of Kemal’s ecological vision in the translation.

A Study of English Translation of Literature on Diet in Taihang Mountainous Areas from the Perspective of Skopos Theory of Translation

There are some differences in the diet of Taihang Mountainous areas due to different regions, food production, social customs, climatic conditions, and historical accumulation. As the names of Taihang Mountain Foods relate to historical and cultural factors, it has brought great difficulties and challenges to translators’ translation. The translator’s understanding of the original text during translation, the choice of translation principles and translation norms, and the translation strategies will make the translations different. Choosing a reasonable translation norm can standardize the translation, and regulating the factors that affect the translation process both inside and outside the text will promote the development of food outreach in the Taihang Mountainous areas. This paper explores the English translation of literature on diet in Taihang Mountainous areas, and points out the differences between Chinese and western thinking styles to find out ways to translate diet literature better from the perspective of skopos theory of translation.

(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.