The Problems Of Literary Translation

This volume examines the various linguistic and cultural problems which point towards the practical impossibility of conveying in one language exactly what was originally said in another. The author provides an exhaustive discussion of Spanish translations from English texts, including non-standard registers. Equivalence across languages, that most elusive of terms in the whole theory of translation, is discussed in terms of linguistic equivalence, textual equivalence, cultural equivalence and pragmatic equivalence. Other aspects studied include how translation has been perceived over the centuries, the differences and the similarities between a writer and a translator, plus a detailed examination of translation as process, all of which bring the problems of literary translation into perspective.

In this book, both beginning and experienced translators will find pragmatic techniques for dealing with problems of literary translation, whatever the original language. Certain challenges and certain themes recur in translation, whatever the language pair. This guide proposes to help the translator navigate through them. Written in a witty and easy to read style, the book’s hands-on approach will make it accessible to translators of any background. A significant portion of this Practical Guide is devoted to the question of how to go about finding an outlet for one’s translations.

This volume extends and deepens our understanding of Translator Studies by charting new territory in terms of theory, methods and concepts. The focus is on literary translators, their roles, identities, and personalities. The book introduces pertinent translator-centered approaches in four sections: historical-biographical studies, social-scientific and process-oriented methods, and approaches that use paratexts or translations to study literary translators. Drawing on a variety of concepts, such as identity, role, self, posture, habitus, and voice, the various chapters showcase forgotten literary translators and shed new light on some well-known figures; they examine literary translators not as functioning units but as human beings in their uniqueness. Literary Translator Studies as a subdiscipline of Translation Studies demonstrates how exploring the cultural, social, psychological, and cognitive facets of translatorial subjects contributes to a holistic understanding of translation.

While translation history, literary translation, and periodical publications have been extensively analyzed within the fields of Translation Studies, Comparative Literature, and Communication Sciences, the relationship between these three topics remains underexplored. Literary Translation in Periodicals argues that there is a pressing need for an analytical focus on translation in periodicals, a collaborative network of researchers, and a transnational and interdisciplinary approach. The book pursues two goals: (1) to highlight the innovative theoretical and methodological issues intrinsic to analyzing literary translation in periodical publications on a small and large scale, and (2) to contribute to a developing field by providing several case studies on translation in periodicals over a wide range of areas and periods (Europe, Latin America, and Asia in the 19th and 20th centuries) that go beyond the more traditional focus on national and European periodicals and translations. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis, as well as hermeneutical and sociological approaches, this book reviews conceptual and methodological tools and proposes innovative techniques, such as social network analysis, big data, and large-scale analysis, for tracing the history and evolution of literary translation in periodical publications.

Performing Without a Stage is a lively and comprehensive introduction to the art of literary translation for readers of foreign fiction and poetry who wonder what it takes to translate, how the art of literary translation has changed over the centuries, what problems translators face in bringing foreign works into English and how they go about solving these problems. This book will also be of interest to translators, writers, editors, critics, and literature students, dealing as it does, often controversially, with such matters as the translator's fidelity to the author, the publishing and reviewing of translations, the nearly nonexistent public image of the stageless translator, and the value for writers and scholars of studying and practicing translation.

In this book, both beginning and experienced translators will find pragmatic techniques for dealing with problems of literary translation, whatever the original language. Certain challenges and certain themes recur in translation, whatever the language pair. This guide proposes to help the translator navigate through them.

An engaging and unabashedly opinionated examination of what translation is and isn't. For some, translation is the poor cousin of literature, a necessary evil if not an outright travesty—summed up by the old Italian play on words, traduttore, traditore (translator, traitor). For others, translation is the royal road to cross-cultural understanding and literary enrichment. In this nuanced and provocative study, Mark Polizzotti attempts to reframe the debate along more fruitful lines. Eschewing both these easy polarities and the increasingly abstract discourse of translation theory, he brings the main questions into clearer focus: What is the ultimate goal of a translation? What does it mean to label a rendering “faithful”? (Faithful to what?) Is something inevitably lost in translation, and can something also be gained? Does translation matter, and if so, why? Unashamedly opinionated, both a manual and a manifesto, his book invites usto sympathize with the translator not as a “traitor” but as the author's creative partner. Polizzotti, himself a translator of authors from Patrick Modiano to Gustave Flaubert, explores what translation is and what it isn't, and how it does or doesn't work. Translation, he writes, “skirts the boundaries between art and craft, originality and replication, altruism and commerce, genius and hack work.” In Sympathy for the Traitor, he shows us how to read not only translations but also the act of translation itself, treating it not as a problem to be solved but as an achievement to be celebrated—something, as Goethe put it, “impossible, necessary, and important.”

What can translations reveal about the global reception of any authorship? In Jane Austen Speaks Norwegian: The Challenges of Literary Translation, Marie Nedregotten Sørbø compares two novels and six translations of them. The discussion is entirely in English, as all Norwegian versions are back-translated. This study therefore lends itself to comparisons with other languages, and aims to fill its place as one component in a worldwide field of research; how Jane Austen is understood and transmitted. Moreover, this book presents a selection of pertinent issues for any translator, including abbreviation and elaboration, style and vocabulary, and censorship. Sørbø gives vivid examples of how literary translation happens, and how it serves to interpret and refashion literature for new readerships.