Translating Canada

In the last thirty years of the twentieth century, Canadian federal governments offered varying degrees of support for literary and other artistic endeavour. A corollary of this patronage of culture at home was an effort to make the resulting works available for audiences elsewhere in the world. Current developments in the study of translation and its influence as cultural transfer have made possible new assessments of such efforts to project a national image abroad. Translating Canada examines cultural materials exported by Canada in addition to those selected for acquisition by German publishers, theatres, and other culture brokers. It also considers the motivations of particular translators and the reception by German reviewers of works by a wide variety of Canadian writers -- novelists and poets, playwrights and children's authors, literary and social critics. Above all, the book maps for its readers a number of significant, though frequently unsuspected, roles that translation assumes in the intercultural negotiation of national images and values. The chapters in this collection will be of value to students, teachers, and scholars in a number of fields. Informed lay readers, too, will appreciate the authors’ insights into the different ways in which translation has contributed to German reception of Canadian books and culture.

The revised edition of The Canadian Style is an indispensable language guide for editors, copywriters, students, teachers, lawyers, journalists, secretaries and business people – in fact, anyone writing in the English language in Canada today. It provides concise, up-to-date answers to a host of questions on abbreviations, hyphenation, spelling, the use of capital letters, punctuation and frequently misused or confused words. It deals with letter, memo and report formats, notes, indexes and bibliographies, and geographical names. It also gives techniques for writing clearly and concisely, editing documents and avoiding stereotyping in communications. There is even an appendix on how to present French words in an English text.

Translation is tricky business. The translator has to transform the foreign to the familiar while moving and pleasing his or her audience. Louise Ladouceur knows theatre from a multi-dimensional perspective that gives her research a particular authority as she moves between two of the dominant cultures of Canada: French and English. Through the analysis of six plays from each linguistic repertoire, written and translated between 1961 and 2000, her award-winning book compares the complexities of a translation process shaped by the power struggle between Canada's two official languages. The winner of the Prix Gabrielle-Roy and the Ann Saddlemyer Book Award, Dramatic Licence addresses issues important to scholars and students of Translation Studies, Canadian Literature and Theatre Studies, as well as theatre practitioners and translators. The University of Alberta Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada, through the National Translation Program for Book Publishing, for our translation activities.

The essays in Culture in Transit are by many of English Canada's most prominent translators, a group which has made whole libraries of Quebec literature available to English-speaking readers. Philip Stratford, Kathy Mezei, Ray Ellenwood, Betty Bednarski, William Findlay, Linda Gaboriau, Jane Brierley, Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood, Luise von Flotow, Barbara Godard, David Homel, Wayne Grady, and Sheila Fischman. The history of Canada has provided an exceptional platform for the development of literary translation. Culture in Transit provides a lively and thought-provoking insider's look at this essential activity.

Much of Canadian cultural life is sustained and enriched by translation. Translation Effects moves beyond restrictive notions of official translation in Canada, analyzing its activities and effects on the streets, in movie theatres, on stages, in hospitals, in courtrooms, in literature, in politics, and across café tables. The first comprehensive study of the intersection of translation and culture, Translation Effects offers an original picture of translation practices across many languages and through several decades of Canadian life. The book presents detailed case studies of specific events and examines the reverberation and spread of their effects. Through these imaginative, at times unusual, investigations, the contributors unveil the simultaneous invisibility and omnipresence of translation and present a cross-cut of Canadian translation moments. Addressing the period from the 1950s to the present and including a wide scope of examples from medical interpreting to film dubbing, the essays in this book create a panoramic view of the creation of modern culture in Canada. Contributors include Piere Anctil (University of Ottawa), Hélène Buzelin (Université de Montréal), Alessandra Capperdoni (Simon Fraser University), Philippe Cardinal, Andrew Clifford (York University), Beverley Curran, Renée Desjardins (University of Ottawa), Ray Ellenwood, David Gaertner, Chantal Gagnon (Université de Montréal), Patricia Godbout, Hugh Hazelton, Jane Koustas (Brock University), Louise Ladouceur (Université de l'Albera, Gillian Lane-Mercier (McGill University), George Lang, Rebecca Margolis, Sophie McCall (Simon Fraser University), Julie Dolmaya McDonough, Denise Merkle (Université de Moncton), Kathy Mezei, Sorouja Moll, Brian Mossop, Daisy Neijmann, Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Joseph Pivato, Gregory Reid, Robert Schwartzwald, Sherry Simon, Luise von Flotow (University of Ottawa), and Christine York.

The essays in Writing between the Lines explore the lives of twelve of Canada’s most eminent anglophone literary translators, and delve into how these individuals have contributed to the valuable process of literary exchange between francophone and anglophone literatures in Canada. Through individual portraits, this book traces the events and life experiences that have led W.H. Blake, John Glassco, Philip Stratford, Joyce Marshall, Patricia Claxton, Doug Jones, Sheila Fischman, Ray Ellenwood, Barbara Godard, Susanne de Lotbinire-Harwood, John Van Burek, and Linda Gaboriau into the complex world of literary translation. Each essay-portrait examines why they chose to translate and what linguistic and cultural challenges they have faced in the practice of their art. Following their relationships with authors and publishers, the translators also reveal how they have defined the goals and the process of literary translation. Containing original, detailed biographical and bibliographical material, Writing between the Lines offers many new insights into the literary translation process, and the diverse roles of the translator as social agent. The first text on Canadian translators, it makes a major contribution in the areas of literary translation, comparative literature, Canadian literature, and cultural studies.

The essays in Canadian Cultural Exchange / Échanges culturels au Canada provide a nuanced view of Canadian transcultural experience. Rather than considering Canada as a bicultural dichotomy of colonizer/colonized, this book examines a field of many cultures and the creative interactions among them. This study discusses, from various perspectives, Canadian cultural space as being in process of continual translation of both the other and oneself. Les articles réunis dans Canadian Cultural Exchange / Échanges culturels au Canada donnent de l’expérience transculturelle canadienne une image nuancée. Plutà ́t que dans les termes d’une dichotomie biculturelle entre colonisateur et colonisé, le Canada y est vu comme champ oÃ1 plusieurs cultures interagissent de manià ̈re créative. Cette étude présente sous de multiples aspects le processus continu de traduction d’autrui et de soi-mÃame auquel l’espace culturel canadien sert de théâtre.