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).
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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).
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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.
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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 …
•
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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
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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.
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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).
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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.)
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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.
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