The Translatability Of Cultures

These essays—which consider a wide variety of cultures from ancient Egypt to contemporary Japan— describe the conditions under which cultures that do not dominate each other may yet achieve a limited translatability of cultures.

Translated texts are often either uncritically consumed by readers, teacher, and scholars or seen to represent an ineluctable loss, a diminishing of original texts. Translation, however, is a cultural practice, influenced also by social and political imperatives, which can open more doors than it closes. The essays in this book show how the act of translation, when vigilantly and critically attended to, becomes a means for active interrogation.

This collection brings together two leading figures in the discipline of translation studies. The essays cover a range of fields, and combine theory with practical case studies involving the translation of literary texts.

How we view the foreign, presented either in the interrelated forms of culture, language, or text, determines to a large degree the way in which we translate. This volume of essays examines the cultural politics of translation that have determined the production and dissemination of the foreign in domestic cultures as varied as contemporary North America, Europe, and Israel. The essays address from a variety of theoretical perspectives the question posed almost two hundred years ago by the German philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher of whether the translator should foreignize the domestic or domesticate the foreign.

This groundbreaking 2007 volume gathers an international team of historians to present the practice of translation as part of cultural history. Although translation is central to the transmission of ideas, the history of translation has generally been neglected by historians, who have left it to specialists in literature and language. This book seeks to achieve an understanding of the contribution of translation to the spread of information in early modern Europe. It focuses on non-fiction: the translation of books on religion, history, politics and especially on science, or 'natural philosophy', as it was generally known at this time. The chapters cover a wide range of languages, including Latin, Greek, Russian, Turkish and Chinese. The book will appeal to scholars and students of the early modern and later periods, to historians of science and of religion, as well as to anyone interested in translation studies.

This book discusses the far-reaching effects that translated texts may have in the target culture and illustrates that translation as a culture-transcending process is an important way of forming cultural identities and of positioning cultures. Lawrence Venuti discusses the enormous power translation wields in constructing representations of foreign cultures. The conservative or transgressive effects of translation are illustrated by several translation projects from different periods: novels, philosophical texts, and religious texts. Candace Seguinot focuses on effects of globalisation for translating advertising. She argues that the marketing of goods and services across cultural boundaries involves an understanding of culture and semiotics that goes well beyond both language and design. Translation is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture. The translator, as the expert communicator, is at the crucial centre of a long chain of communication from the original initiator to the ultimate receiver of a message. The papers and the debates take up important related issues: translation strategies (foreignising vs. domesticating strategies; translation and marketing strategies); the knowledge required of translators as interlingual and intercultural mediators; ethical responsibilities; and consequences for translator training. Contributors to the debates include Mona Baker, Terry Hale, Paul Kussmaul, Kirsten Malmkjaer, Peter Newmark and Douglas Robinson.

Translating Chinese Culture is an innovative and comprehensive coursebook which addresses the issue of translating concepts of culture. Based on the framework of schema building, the course offers helpful guidance on how to get inside the mind of the Chinese author, how to understand what he or she is telling the Chinese-speaking audience, and how to convey this to an English speaking audience. A wide range of authentic texts relating to different aspects of Chinese culture and aesthetics are presented throughout, followed by close reading discussions of how these practices are executed and how the aesthetics are perceived among Chinese artists, writers and readers. Also taken into consideration are the mode, audience and destination of the texts. Ideas are applied from linguistics and translation studies and each discussion is reinforced with a wide variety of practical and engaging exercises. Thought-provoking yet highly accessible, Translating Chinese Culture will be essential reading for advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students of Translation and Chinese Studies. It will also appeal to a wide range of language studies and tutors through its stimulating discussion of the principles and purposes of translation.

This cutting-edge collection, born of a belief in the value of approaching 'translation' in a wide range of ways, contains essays of interest to students and scholars of translation, literary and textual studies. It provides insights into the relations between translation and comparative literature, contrastive linguistics, cultural studies, painting and other media. Subjects and authors discussed include: the translator as 'go-between'; the textual editor as translator; Ghirri's photography and Celati's fiction; the European lending library; La Bible d'Amiens; the coining of Italian phraseological units; Michèle Roberts's Impossible Saints; the impact of modern translations for stage on perceptions of ancient Greek drama; and the translation of slang, intensifiers, characterisation, desire, the self, and America in 1990s Italian fiction. The collection closes with David Platzer's discussion of translating Dacia Maraini's poetry into English and with his new translations of 'Ho Sognato una Stazione' ('I Dreamed of a Station') and 'Le Tue Bugie' ('Your Lies').