Prose Translation Research Articles

Ukrainian Translations: Releasing from Russian Cultural Expansion

This manuscript gives an outline of Ukrainian translations of the latter 20th century as well as their interrelationship with the literary process of the abovementioned period. The study aims to define the translator’s place in the Ukrainian literary context with a focus on the Ukrainian language as a part of national culture and a keystone to recognize national identity. It reveals the philosophical and aesthetic background and its impact on forming the aesthetic canon of the Ukrainian prose translations which had for long been under the pressure of Russian translation schools. Based on the analysis of English prose translations and, in particular, unique materials collected in private archives and publishing funds, the research highlights the concepts of translation presented in the works of Rostislav Dotsenko, who proves to be one of the most outstanding representatives of Ukrainian Translation School.

Rhyming prose and archaizing

Abstract The present paper discusses the translation of the maqāmāt (i.e., assemblies) from Arabic into English. The focus is on two main issues: the translation of rhyming prose into English and the problem of archaizing the language when translating old literary texts, especially Arabic ones. The discussion of these two topics draws on different views, especially Catford’s, Newmark’s, and Pym’s, and examples translated by the author and compared to Prendergast’s translation ([1915] 2015), the only rendition available. This discussion also touches upon the dichotomy of foreignization versus domestication, as explicated by Venuti (1997). The paper concludes that translating expressive texts is quite an undertaking, particularly if they are contingent on rhyming prose and archaisms as their basic features. Another important conclusion is that the translator should keep an eye on the temporal distance between the two texts (i.e., the source text and the target text). Archaisms are therefore proposed to sprinkle the translated text with that perceived aspect of time. However, this does not mean that the target text will appear incomprehensible, for archaizing should be confined to the lexical level and some syntactic constructions which characterize literary prose.

LXVII стихотворение поэмы А. Теннисона «In Memoriam» и его роль в формировании переводческой стратегии В. В. Набокова

This paper examines 67 canto from Alfred Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” translated to Russian by Vladimir Nabokov, as well as the reception of Tennyson’s poetry in Nabokov’s works. The key conceptual features of the translation are analyzed with consideration of the evolution of Nabokov’s opinions on translation and literary theory in general. The paper addresses mentions of Tennyson in Nabokov’s prose and other publications in order to broaden the understanding of Nabokov’s perspective. Nabokov’s translation is compared to the original English text and to the translations by D.L. Mikhalovskii and N.M. Minskii. The study describes transformations and the differences between the strategies used by the translators. Nabokov’s commentary on his translation of “Eugene Onegin” is taken into consideration when iambic structure of the English text is examined. The author has concluded that Nabokov’s approach to the translation of Tennyson’s poem is different from his work on translations of prose from the same period and is defined by translator’s effort to reproduce both the imagery and the structure close to the original. This translation illustrates the early stage of Nabokov’s path from translation as “adaptation”, when the original is transformed in one way or another, to the literalism of “Eugene Onegin”.

KNjIŽEVNOST I UMETNOST FIRENCE U STVARALAŠTVU MILOŠA CRNjANSKOG

Miloš Crnjanski dedicated the chapter About Florentine Beatrice in his travelogue Love in Tuscany (Ljubav u Toskani) to Florence and Dante Alighieri’s Vita Nuova. The experience of Florence is progressively elaborated through interpretation and translation of prose and verses of the celebrated Italian writer and it is different from images of the other cities that Crnjanski created in his travelogue, because it is the only one completely deprived of physical descrip- tions or narration of the events from past or present. The surroundings of Florence appear in the poem Stražilovo, written before the travelogue Love in Tuscany and in the poem the poet offers us a few ethereal details of the landscape. In the novel At the Hyperboreans (Kod Hiper- borejaca), even though the plot is situated in Rome, Florence is often mentioned as a place that would be good to return to and Crnjanski is a little more generous in physical descriptions in those passages. Speaking of Michelangelo, in the novel At the Hyperboreans and in the Book of Michelangelo, Florence is one of the most wonderful sources of art, while Minchelangelo’s sonnets are indispensable reading for Crnjanski in all his efforts to understand the essence of the artist’s being. Crnjanski does not highlight exactly how important Florence is to him, but in his works it often represents the place of the writer’s intellectual and emotional immersions in the centuries of Italian literature and art. In this paper, by analyzing and interpreting pas- sages from the aforementioned works, we examine the role of Florence and its culture and how important it is in Crnjanski’s literature.

A Study on the Translation of Words in Zhang Peiji's English Translation of Modern Chinese Prose under the Guidance of Skopos Theory

A Study on the Translation of Words in Zhang Peiji's English Translation of Modern Chinese Prose under the Guidance of Skopos Theory

The Image of a Romantic Female-Beloved between Two Cultures: The Attempts at Translating of Adam Mickiewicz’ Love Lyrics by Cossack Officer Ivan Ul’ianov

The study of the evolution of the narratives created by the Don Cossacks in the first half of the nineteenth century is a difficult research task because apart from records, only individual texts, often taken out of context, have survived from this time. Nonetheless, research on such topics seems quite promising. The texts of Don authors often clearly demonstrate the mechanism of transformation of the works of high culture of the nineteenth century when interpreted by amateurs. Taking into account the inevitably individual character of such a transformation in each single case, within the framework of a microhistorical approach we have examined a particular variant of such a transformation, that is the translations of Adam Mickiewicz’s love lyrics by a Cossack officer, Ivan S. Ul'inov (1803–1874). He was a nineteenth-century Don public figure, major-general, and writer. His extensive legacy, most of which has never been published, includes hitherto unknown prose translations of the Polish poet's lyrics, made in the 1820s. Nine of the eleven poems translated by Ulyanov are lyrical works about the inaccessibility of the beloved or separation from her. At the same time, within the framework of traditional Cossack matrimonial practices, the main form of interaction between the sexes was the marriage contracted by the will and in the interests of the parents and involving long separations between husband and wife due to regular service outings. Deviations from the traditional Cossack understanding of the gender role of women in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are often found in the texts (including autobiographical ones) of other Don Cossacks who were influenced by European culture. In a similar context, Ul'ianov’s inept translations demonstrate how the text about Polish culture changed its meaning when transferred to the Cossack environment: poems on the theme of the inaccessible beloved familiar to the Polish reader were translated into prose about the possibility of a different gender role of a woman, a complete novelty for the Cossack reader.

New Books across the Disciplines

New Books across the Disciplines

譯莎「詩體」論

In China, there has long been controversy over the “Poetic Translation” and “Prose Translation. Those who insist on the “Poetic translation” style think that Shakespeare’s plays are poetic, so the Chinese translations should adopt the form of “poem”, as a result of which the translations can approach the original works and the “Real Shakespeare” in terms of language form and style, etc. while the “Prose Translation” fails to achieve this. The “Poetic Translation” sprang from the transplantation of “Blank Verse” starting with the distinguished translator of Sun Dayu, followed by Lin Tongji, Bian Zhilin and Fang Ping etc. What is the effect of the“Poetic Translation” Does it pursue “form” or resemble in appearance while losing the real expressions. The paper aims at searching for it.

FEATURES OF THE CREATION AND USE OF A BILINGUAL BOOK IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS. EXPERIENCE OF TRADITIONAL CLASSES AND INNOVATIVE ELU COURSE

The “learn by translating” method of teaching translation skills is not new, but this does not make it any less productive. Translation teachers know that the disciplines included in the standard translation theory course are very difficult for students to understand, so some of them try to make the learning process more creative. Earlier, our Literary and Translation School-Studio prepared and published a bilingual (Estonian-Russian) children's book “Loe veel! - Read more!” and a two-volume book "Estonian Writer of the Sixties", which included translations of poetic, prose and dramaturgical works of representatives of the "cassette generation" of Estonian literature. It has long been necessary to publish a book of fairy tales of the peoples of Estonia in the Estonian (state) and Russian (still the most common language of interethnic communication in the post-Soviet space) languages. And this was made possible thanks to the addition of innovative and interdisciplinary ELU courses to the schedule of Tallinn University. The aim of the project was to create a book that would introduce children and their parents to the fairy tales of many peoples living in Estonia. This was also the reason for the objectives of the project: to find out how many and which national cultural societies are registered in Estonia; select one fairy tale of each of the peoples; prepress and release the collection. The relevance of the project lies in the fact that a wider audience - students of various specialties - was involved in work that they had not previously been offered to do, respectively, the existing hopes for obtaining a new quality of study were justified.

Perspektif penterjemahan karya sastera prosa Arab ke bahasa Melayu dalam kajian-kajian lepas

Translating Arabic prose literature into Malay is not an easy task, especially when dealing with rhetoric. Translators frequently face difficulties in understanding figurative meaning when translating rhetoric in a literary text. Therefore, this research examines discourse on the translation of Arabic prose literature into Malay in past research. The research focuses on two aspects: i) Arabic-Malay translations of literature which are often used as research material to observe the tendency of aspects of research by scholars, and ii) translation method and strategy for figurative language in Arabic-Malay translations of literary works. This research is designed in a qualitative form through the method of content analysis of books, journal articles, proceedings, and theses. Data is analysed in a descriptive manner in order to observe the perspective of translation of Arabic prose literature into Malay in past researches. Kalīlah wa Dimnah, Riḥlah Ibn Baṭṭūṭah, Ḥikāyat Alf Laylah wa Laylah and Masrūr wa Maqrūr are Arabic-Malay literature translation that are often used as research material. Results of the research show that past research tend to analyse the translation of Arabic-Malay prose from the aspects of theory, method, and strategy used by translators in translation works. Choosing a theory, method, and strategy has a potential impact on producing good translations in the targeted language and even preserving literary values as intended precisely by the source text.

Farys po arabsku z drugiej ręki prozą

ADAM MICKIEWICZ’S FARYS IN ARABIC ‒ SECOND HAND TRANSLATION IN PROSE
 In 1830, the French version of Mickiewicz’s narrative poem Farys was published in a prose translation of the poet himself. On its basis, an Arabic translation was produced by a Cairo teacher named M. Jamali. In 1910, thanks to the efforts of the Mickiewicz’s son, Władysław, it appeared in a bilingual brochure together with the original French text. In the same year, the Egyptian monthly Az-Zuhūr also published an Arabic translation of this poem, without mentioning the translator’s name. This article presents a comparative analysis of both of these Arabic translations and shows that the version published by Az-Zuhūr is nothing else but an editorial revision of the Jamali’s work.

A Study of Xu Yuanchong’s English Translation of the Analects of Confucius from the Perspective Eco-translatology

Chinese ancient prose culture has a long history and occupies an important place in the world civilization. Translation activities have played an important role in the process of cultural dissemination since ancient times. Xu Yuanchong, a Centennial translator in China, is an outstanding representative in the field of ancient prose translation. Eco-translation, as a theory of adaptation and transformation, is of great practical significance to the study of ancient Chinese translation in contemporary society, and has been fully applied in the English translation of the Analects of Confucius. Based on the three theories of ecological translation: translation ecological environment, adaptation and choice, and "three-dimensional" transformation, this paper studies Xu Yuanchong's English version of the Analects of Confucius, aiming at providing more research ideas for the English translation of the Analects of Confucius and making Confucianism better convey its value across ancient and modern times.

Новый поэтический перевод и анализ изобразительно-выразительных средств, использованных в стихотворении Ду Фу «Отправляюсь из Ланчжуна»

The aim of this study is to complete a new literary translation of Du Fu’s poem “I’m Leaving Langzhong”. The scientific novelty of the study is due to the fact that literary translation is a transformation of prose translation, and the latter, in turn, is based on the analysis of all the lines of the poem in terms of immediate constituents and the study of the figurative and expressive means of the original work. The immediate constituents analysis also allows us to classify parallel fragments of the poem in question according to direction. As a result, the proposed poetic translation, on the one hand, quite accurately conveys the meaning of the original poem, and on the other hand, meets the requirements and expectations of the widest range of the Russian-speaking readers. In addition, the analysis of the figurative and expressive means used by Du Fu is carried out. It is proved that the poem contains parallel fragments characterized by both vertical and horizontal symmetry. Parallelism is complemented by rhetorical questions, antitheses and hyperboles. The performed analysis of the means of artistic expression will allow more fully preserving the figurativeness of the original work in the translation text.

Study on the Translation and Dissemination of Chinese Prose in the Context of Presenting Compelling China Stories

With the exchange and integration of Chinese and foreign cultures, Chinese literature has gradually opened the door to the world and occupied an important place in the world literary field. There are four major literary genres in China. As one of them, prose serves as an important part of China’s excellent culture and a treasure of Chinese culture. Promoting the dissemination of Chinese prose is a key to present compelling China stories, which not only bears on the development and promotion of Chinese prose, but also is the need to comply with the requirements of the times and enhance China’s cultural soft power. Based on the context of presenting compelling China stories, this paper will make a preliminary exploration and research on the English translation and dissemination of Chinese prose, summarize and prospect the current research results, and propose supplements to promote the external dissemination of Chinese prose, so as to give an inspiration on presenting compelling China stories and improve the fundamentals of theoretical research, thus providing experience and reference for the subsequent study of prose English translation.

Překlady Josefa Lindy ze Shakespeara

In the context of the reception of Shakespeare in the early period of the Czech National Revival from the 1780s to the 1830s, the paper discusses the contribution of the writer Josef Linda (1789/1792?–1834), who published a series of commented selected passages from Shakespeare’s plays in the literary magazine Čechoslav in 1822–1823. The earliest reception of Shakespeare’s oeuvre paralleled the developing revival of the Czech language and original literature, using the limited media available. The first publications were two chapbooks by an anonymous author outlining the plots of Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice printed in 1782 without stating the name of the author, adapted from German versions. The first Czech version bearing the playwright’s name was the simplified prose translation of Macbeth by Karel Hynek Thám, published and staged in 1786. Several minor contributions (short passages from plays, quotations, short playwright’s biographies) were published in magazines. The series of Linda’s translations is specific, he called short passages from plays “vejpisy” (“extracts”) and used them to illustrate various human qualities (veracity, flattery, straightness) and supposed views of the playwright (Shakespeare on music). They also included a short article on Elizabethan theatre. His knowledge of Shakespeare is also perceptible in his play Jaroslav Šternberg v boji proti Tatarům (1823, Jaroslav of Šternberg Fighting the Tatars). Being published in one of the earliest Czech literary magazines with a wide readership, Linda’s translations thus contributed to Czech acquaintance with the playwright’s oeuvre.

Teaching and Learning Scientific Translation: Problems, Challenges, and Solutions

Scientific translation is not a kind of knowledge that could be gained by practice, or byimplementation of certain techniques. Therefore, teaching scientific translation does notinvolve the demonstration of its techniques and strategies only. However, it also involvesthe awareness of the requirements for this type of translation such as the expertise neededin this area, the consequences of neglecting linguistic and grammatical rules whentranslating scientific prose, the different barriers encountered, and the preliminary stepstaken before engaging in the translation. Similarly, learners of scientific translation shouldnot only learn the rules of scientific translation, but also be aware of the scientifictranslator’s job which is not the mere replacement of the source lexical terms with targetones. They should be learned that the translation of scientific prose, though non-literal,should render as directly as possible the exact meaning of the original. Accordingly, thispaper highlights the problems encountered when teaching and learning English-Arabicscientific translation. One of them is the students’ neglecting of the grammatical rules inscientific translation, which affects their translation of other text-types and influences andother modes of translation such as subtitling. The paper also attempts to offer solutionsand establish possible factors that may lead to a methodology of teaching and learning thistype of translation.

New Books across the Disciplines

New Books across the Disciplines

AUTOMATIC TEXT TRANSLATION SYSTEM FOR ARTIFICIAL LLANGUAGES

The growing number and variety of artificial languages leads to the need and relevance of creating automatic dictionaries for their translation in order to facilitate human communication. Such languages include languages where vocabulary, phonetics, and grammar have been specifically designed to achieve specific goals and to communicate with a group of people by interests or place of residence. These languages can be distributed among people of certain professions or among neighboring nations. Examples are slang and surzhik. The common for them is that there is a basic language (literary), the intersection in spelling and meaning of words and phrases with which is quite large. The main goal of the project is to create a system of automatic translation of words and texts from / into arbitrary languages, including hybrid, artificial and slang ones. The proposed model shows the interaction and partial interdependence of the creation and adjustment modules and the translation module of the dictionary, which is explained by tacking the approach of reverse propagation of the translation error. To perform experiments and analyze the performance of the proposed approach to the organization of automatic translation of texts from and into arbitrary language, a software application was developed, which includes a subprogram of initial word processing for dictionary organization, one for creating a working dictionary and one for two-way improvement of created dictionary by the inclusion of new texts in order to improve the quality of translation, including the search for word phrases, idiom, and translation for them, the subprogram of dividing the dictionary into sub-dictionaries with a small percentage of text, the subprogram of the translator itself. To test and analyze the results of the proposed generalized model, three types of source texts were used: literary poetry translation, literary prose translation, literal prose translation. The results of the experiments showed that the proposed approach provides a high level of translation (up to 98,8%) in similar languages (between such languages as Ukrainian-Russian, or Ukrainian - Ukrainian-Russian surzhik wih equal word order in the sentence), especially with a literally translated source text. It has become known that the use of artistic texts to generate dictionaries is possible, but not very effective.

The types of modulation as a technique of prose and poetry translation

The paper considers the types and reasons of using such technique of translation as modulation. Modulation is defined as a variation through a change of viewpoint in the target text. This technique is investigated on the basis of the Ukrainian translations of the classical prose and poetry of the 19-20th centuries. Two major types of modulation are singled out: the substitution of cause by effect and the change of the point of view. In the translation of prose texts by D. Thomas and A. Lawrence both types are used, thus revealing the creative approach and the ability to imagine the described situation. The use of modulation is determined by the described situation and the use of extended metaphors. Literal translation is not relevant in this case, as it does not reveal the emotional state of the main character. In such case the subject of the source-text sentence becomes the object in the target-text utterance. A somewhat different approach can be applied in discussing poetry translation. The analysis of translations of E. Poe’s and R. Kipling’s poems by such outstanding people as D. Palamarchuk and M. Strikha shows that both varieties of modulation are used to retain the rhyme and reduce the number of words in the lines. In the analyzed poems the technique of modulation is applied in rendering extended metaphors as well as antithesis to increase the emotional effect. Modulation is one of the features of Maxim Strikha’s style of poetry translation. By means of this technique, the translator foregrounds the main idea of the sentence (stanza) – the idea of strong love (E. Poe), of nobleness and decency (R. Kipling).

Особенности передачи этномаркеров в переводах прозы О. Бокеева

The article analyzes the structural and other formal differences between the translated text and the original work. The discrepancy in the semantic relation is revealed due to the impossibility of translating individual elements of the original text, which is recognized as inevitable in the conditions of ethnocultural specificity, differences in sets of expressive means inherent in different languages. In addition, the translator's personality, experience and skills also influence the completeness and accuracy of the translation of the original work. The relevance of the research lies in the fact that since ancient times translation has been a source of necessary knowledge and the foundations of culture. The role of translation is to mediate between different cultures and languages. The value of translating a prose text is constantly increasing. This procedure, which consists in translating into another language what is contained in the original text, is undoubtedly a complex operation and requires appropriate skills. When translating prose texts, one should be guided, first of all, by the principle of communication. It is necessary to identify three important rules that should be followed when translating ethnomarkers of prose texts: information should be transmitted clearly and responsibly; the target text should be adapted for recipients; it is important that the translation can fulfill its role, that is, transmit information, taking into account the ethnic realities of the language being studied. The purpose of the study is to consider the role of ethnic aspects and problems in the translation of prose texts using the example of O. Bokeeva. This type of translation requires subject, language and cultural competence. This procedure creates special difficulties associated with various translation features. It should be noted here that statements devoid of socio-cultural context may be structurally correct, but inappropriate from the point of view of ethnic requirements. Тhe process of moving away from the perception of translation as an interlanguage system to culturally oriented aspects underlies the prosaic analysis of text translation. The absolute position of the original as a source of meanings extracted from the language should focus on the concept of equivalence. The structuralism of prose translation assumes that the main task is to determine the essence and conditions that generalize the behavioral characteristics of an ethnic group, as well as the context of the use of terms of its representatives. The practical significance lies in the analysis of the prose translation of O. Bokeev's works along with the consideration of the problems of the transfer of ethnomarkers.