Translation: processes, products, and theories - feminisms and gender - AV work - cultural diplomacy...

Translation: processes, products, and theories

- feminisms and gender- AV work- cultural diplomacy

Vienna Review: June 2012

Translation: work on texts in context

• Translation Studies concur:

• - translation is work in context;• - affected by and affecting social conditions – politics,

wealth/poverty, cultural traditions, borders and movements across them, health, linguistic possibilities, subjective decisions;

• - it is deliberate, intentional, purposeful;• - it usually seeks to communicate; • - it is a tool with many uses, deployed by many

different agents.

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Translation as process

• How is translation done?

• - technical means; machine translations, dubbing/subtitling technologies; (fansubbing…)

• - solutions to linguistic problems: dictionaries, termbanks, memory systems;

• - the translator’s ’black box;’• - the group work of translation: authors, translators,

editors, publishers, reviewers, etc. (Bruno La Tour).


Translation as product

• What affects and results from the processes of translation?

• - political, ideological and cultural influences;• - socio-political uses/abuses of translation;• - social aspects of translation: (translator’s invisibility,

identity, subjectivity); translator as part of group;• - management/support by government, other forces;• - purposeful communication? (cultural diplomacy)• - text manipulation? • - access (for less able).


Theorization of translation

• - translation is purposeful and deliberate; therefore it will always prepare a text for the target audience (feminist work, film);

• - translation always changes a text (because of innate differences between languages, cultures, historical moments): therefore it manipulates a text;

• - translation is reproductive, not original work: therefore it is feminine (weak, manipulative, untrustworthy, uncreative;)

• - translation enables communication across all boundaries: it is metramorphic, reminiscent of the intense communication of mother and child in late-pregnancy.


Feminisms and Translation

• Processes: • assertive visible translators, paratexts, deliberate

marked interference by translators;• translation of numerous women writers, development of

publishing series; nefarious language of translation: “translationese;”

• creative, interventionist work;• close collaboration between author and translator –

devising shared meaning.

• Products: • Texts adjusted for current (feminist) times: Bible• Texts produced for feminist times• Theorizations …

•


Feminisms and Translation

• Products: • Texts adjusted for current (feminist) times: Bible• Re-translated for current politics: Beauvoir

• Texts produced for feminist times – for series of women authors;

• Theorizations: women’s empowerment through feminism empowers translation (cf. theoretical connection between women’s reproductive powers/translation


Advent of ‘Gender’/’Queer’

• Processes:• - less assertive interference (woman-interrogated

translation);• - less translation with fem-focus.• - inclusive of all genders, and de-politicized

• Products:• - gendered and queer texts reject labels, harder to

‘place’ socio-culturally or to politicize;• - social ‘intellectual’ consensus = silencing.


AV-Translation

• Processes:• - technical problems! How to translate moving images

and fleeting sound?• - where place the text?• - does text disrupt image or the illusion of the whole?• - how far do images alone ‘speak?’ how can this be

translated?• - translating for accessibility: blind and hard of hearing• - translating for public health communication (PSAs).


AV Translation

• Products:• - how translated film differs from original – in impact, in

enjoyability, in cultural clash of image and language;• - how translations of same material differ from each

other: French vs Quebec French, Spanish vs Mexican Spanish –

• - translation as film censorship (esp. in dubbing countries)

• - dubbing that liberates from Hollywood;• - problems of slang or dialect (in written subtitles, in

spoken synchronization);• - humour – and its cultural variations/functions/

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Translation and Cultural Diplomacy

• (Processes and) Products: • selection of work for translation (government

involvement, CIA Cold War psychological warfare, colonial/postcolonial questions – now: writing for translation – cf. Tim Parks!)

• selective financing, subsidies, support;• random translation – friends, groups, accidents;• events promoting or hampering translation/exchange;• translation as promotion/branding/advertising (Bush’s

USA.)


Current theorizations around translation

• Difference is more interesting and telling than equivalence;

• Equivalence is impossible – hence translation “manages” difference;

• Translation produces knowledge selectively;• Translation is communication, subject to discursive

norms; sometimes it is mis-communication;• It is contingent: reflecting conditions and situations;

never absolute, never final;• There is always room and possibility for more

translation.


Translation: processes, products, and theories - feminisms and gender - AV work - cultural diplomacy...

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