CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL TURNS

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CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL TURNS

• Focus on the interactions
• between translation and culture
• gt from translation as text to
• translation as culture and politics

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3 areas

• Translation as rewriting
• Translation and gender
• Translation and postcolonialism

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André Lefevere

• Focuses on concrete factors
• Issues of power, ideology, institution and
  manipulation
• gt people involved in these processes are
  REWRITING literature and governing its
  consumption
• (at work in translation, historiography,
  anthologization, editing, etc.)

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Motivations for rewriting

• Ideological (conforming to or rebelling against
  the dominant ideology)
• Poetological (conforming to or rebelling against
  the dominant/preferred poetics)
• ex E. Fitzgerald translator of Omar Khayyam

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Translation controlled by 3 main factors

• 1) Professionals within the literary system
  critics, reviewers, teachers, translators
• 2) Patronage outside the literary system
  institutions, academies, patrons, the media, etc.
• 3) Dominant poetics literary devices the
  concept of the role of literature

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2) Patronage outside the literary system 3
elements

• The ideological component constraints regarding
  subject and form
• The economic component royalty payments and
  translation fees
• The status component benefits in terms of social
  status not economic gain
• PATRONAGE undifferentiated / differentiated

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3) Dominant poetics

• a) literary devices genres, symbols, characters,
  etc.
• b) the concept of the role of literature
  relation of literature to the social system in
  which it exists (role of institutions in
  determining the poetics)

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On the interaction between poetics, ideology and
translation

• On every level of the translation process, it
  can be shown that, if linguistic considerations
  enter into conflict with considerations of an
  ideological and/or poetological nature, the
  latter tend to win out.
• (Lefevere, 1992a)
• gt the translator's ideology or the ideology
  imposed upon the translator by patronage
• gt the dominant poetics in the TL culture

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Ideology poetics dictate the translation
strategy

• Ex. translating Aristophanes' Lysistrata if he
  doesn't give you his hand, take him by the penis
• Ex. translating the diary of Anne Frank
• There is no greater enmity in the world than
  between Germans and Jews
• There is no greater enmity in the world than
  between these Germans and Jews

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Translation and Gender

• Sherry Simon culture is not unproblematic!
• gt Simon focuses on sexism in translation studies
• gt Simon approaches translation from a
  gender-studies angle

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• gt Simon develop the concept of TRANSLATION
  PROJECT fidelity toward the writing process (not
  to the author, nor the reader)
• gt political project make the feminine visible in
  language

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• Ex.
• Linguistic markers bold e in one
• Capitalizations M in huMan rights
• Neologisms auther
• Female personifications dawn she

Men and women language http//www.youtube.com/wat
ch?viGoC8FTLKSI Men talk http//www.youtube.com
/watch?vVXD8yOxIPB0 http//www.youtube.com/watch?
vdn8B0VLaqHk
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In addition to this

• Essential contribution to literary history women
  translators

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Translation and gay texts

• More on the issue of gender and identity
• Ex translating camp talk
• combining linguistic methods analysis of
  literature contact theory politeness in
  language practice
• - use of girl talk
• - Southern Belle accent
• - French expressions

http//www.youtube.com/watch?vmMQ7vtm7_Nwfeature
relmfu
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What happens in translation?

• Markers of gay identity disappear (to be gay en
  etre)
• Or are made pejorative (perfect weakness
  faible)
• WHY?

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A way of speaking is a way to...

• Expose hostile values
• Make the community visible
• In France 1) (perhaps) the usefulness of
  identity markers are not recognized
• 2) a radical gay (male) theorizing is absent
• In USA 1) publishers support gay writing
• 2) gay subculture is much stronger and accepted

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Translation and the postcolonial

• Cultural studies brings to translation an
  understanding of the complexities of gender and
  culture. It allows us to situate linguistic
  transfer within the multiple 'post' realities of
  today poststructuralism, postcolonialism and
  postmodernism
• gt what is postcolonialism?

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Postcolonial

• has to do with the history of the former
  colonies, powerful European empires, resistance
  to colonial powers, the imbalance of power
  relations bt colonizers and colonized

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Gayatri Spivak

• brings together feminist, poststructuralist,
  postcolonial approaches
• against translationese
• which erases difference and eliminates the
  identity of those who are less powerful

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Spivak

• First world women should learn the minorities
  language ex., Bengali
• Translation has played an active role in
  colonization

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Tejaswini Niranjana

• Translation instrument to rewrite an image of
  the East that has come to stand for the truth
• (missionaries, ethnographers, officials, etc.)
• western orientation has 3 failings
• Translation studies does not consider power
  imbalance
• Some concepts of unity and the subject are flawed
• Humanistic enterprise needs to be questioned

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The postcolonial translator must...

• Call into question every aspect of colonialism,
  dismantling the hegemonic West from within
• Resist colonial discourse and use and
  interventionist approach

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Translation...

• Battleground of the colonial project
  translational ? transnational
• in our age of /the valorization of) migrancy,
  exile, diaspora, the word 'translation' seems to
  have come full circle and reverted from its
  figurative literary meaning of an interlingual
  transaction to its etymological physical meaning
  of locational disrupture translation seems to
  have been translated back to its origins.
  (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999)

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Crucial concepts

• In-between, third space, hybridity, difference
• Homi Bhabha the discourse of colonial power
  might be subverted by colonial hybridity gt
  translator is no longer a mediator, but deals
  with overlappings

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Lawrence Venuti

• Translation studeis needs to take into account
  the value-driven nature of the sociocultural
  framework
• Against Toury there are no universal norms! What
  is just formal and linguistic resounds with the
  surrounding culture values, beliefs, social
  representations, social institutions where the
  translations are produced

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Institutions

• Governments
• Publishers
• Editors
• Literary agents
• Marketing teams
• Libraries
• Reviewers
• Festival organizers

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invisibility

• To describe the translators situation in
  contempoarry Anglo-American culture
• Produced by
• Translating fluently
• Pretending the TT is an original
• Domestication of ST
• gt Consequence of the prevailing conception of
  authorship translation is still considered
  secondary, something to be concealed

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• haec finis Priami fatorum, hic exitus illum
• sorte tulit Troiam incensam et prolapsa uidentem
• Pergama, tot quodam populis terrisque superbum
• regnatorem Asiae. iacet ingens litore truncus,
• auulsumque umeris caput et sine nomine corpus.
• Thus fell the King, who yet survivd the State,
• With such a signal and peculiar Fate.
• Under so vast a ruine not a Grave,
• Nor in such flames a funeral fire to have
• He, whom such Titles swelld, such Power made
  proud
• To whom the Scepters of all Asia bowd,
• On the cold earth lies thunregarded King,
• A headless Carkass, and a nameless Thing.

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Domestication

• ethnocentric reduction of the foregn text to
  the target-language cultural values
• transparent, fluent, invisible style
• (Re Schleiermacher leave the reader in peace)
• - Adherence to domestic literary canons (only
  adequate texts are selected for translation)

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Foreignization

• choosing a foreign text and developing a
  translation that is not familiar
• To register difference
• To resist the ethnocentric violence of
  translation
• Venuti is in favor of a non-fluent or estranging
  translation style to make visible the presence of
  the translator

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Foreignizing or minoritizing

• Vanuti translates Igino Tarchetti, a 19 minor
  Italian bohemien writer who challenged the moral
  values of the day
• Deliberate inclusion of foreignizing elements
• - American slang
• Close adherence to the ST structure and syntax
• Calques
• Archaisms
• British spellings

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• I had almost lost
• hope of ever seeing you again
• and I asked myself if this thing
• cutting me off
• of images,
• was the approach of death, or truly
• some dazzling
• vision of you
• out of the past,
• bleached, distorted,
• fading 
• (under the arches at Modena
• I saw an old man in a uniform
• dragging two jackals on a leash).
•  

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Foreignization-domestication heuristic concepts

• Foreignization translations tend to flaunt their
  partiality instead of concealing it, but it is
  contingent! Its terms may change across time and
  location
• gt Venutis work based on Antoine Berman

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Berman

• Ethical aim of the translation receive the
  foreign as foreign
• Too many deforming forces in translation!
• Translating the novel respect its shapeless
  polylogic!

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Deforming tendencies in Berman

• Rationalization
• Clarification
• Expansion
• Ennoblement
• Qualitative impoverishment
• Quantitative impoverishment
• The destruction of rhythms
• The destruction of underlying networks of
  signification
• The destruction of linguistic patternings
• The destruction of vernacular networks or their
  exoticization
• The destruction of expressions and idioms
• The effacement of the superimposition of
  languages

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Bermans work important

• in linking philosophical ideas to translation
  strategies
• His proposal literal translation attached to
  the letter

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• La speranza di pure rivederti
• mabbandonava
• e mi chiesi se questo che mi chiude
• ogni senso di te, schermo dimmagini,
• ha i segni della morte o dal passato
• è in esso, ma distorto e fatto labile,
• un tuo barbaglio
• (a Modena, tra i portici,
• un servo gallonato trascinava
• due sciacalli al guinzaglio).
• (Montale 1984a144)