Translating Identities On Stage And Screen

This book takes a pragmatic/semiotic approach to real-life translating for the stage and screen, with a view to showing the potential of systematic linguistic analysis to reveal aspects of meaning-making. Functionalist, interpretive and critical perspectives merge to describe shifting aspects of phenomena in acculturating Pinter, Shakespeare, Wilde, Leonard, Shaw, Austen, etc., in the second half of the 20th century, for the Greek stage and/or screen. More specifically, the book tackles rendition of politeness in staging Pinter, implementation of narrative perspectives in stage and screen versions of Hamlet, rendition of semantic oppositions for humour generation across versions in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, rendition of subcultural linguistic variety in Shaw’s Pygmalion on stage and screen, target identity inscription in versions of Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and Leonard’s Da, rendition of phenomena in subtitling and dubbing The Hunchback of Notre Dame animation film for the young, and the similarities between translation and cinematic adaptation of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and Hislop’s The Island. Awareness of specificities in the treatment of linguistic phenomena is expected to inform the agenda of what is to be further explored in Translation Studies.

This book offers a unique window to the study of im/politeness by looking at a translation perspective, which offers a different set of data and allows further understanding of the phenomenon. In the arena of real-life translation practice, the workings of im/politeness are renegotiated in a different cultural context and thus pragmatically oriented cross-cultural differences become more concrete and tangible. The book focuses on the language pair English and Greek, a strategic choice with Greek as a less widely spoken language and English as a global language. The two languages also differ in their politeness orientation in certain genres, which allows for a fruitful comparison. The volume focuses on press translation first, then translation of academic texts and translation for the stage, and finally audiovisual translation (mainly subtitles). These genres highlight a public, an interactional, and a multimodal dimension in the workings of im/politeness.

In this book, Shelby Chan examines the relationship between theatre translation and identity construction against the sociocultural background that has led to the popularity of translated theatre in Hong Kong. A statistical analysis of the development of translated theatre is presented, establishing a correlation between its popularity and major socio-political trends. When the idea of home, often assumed to be the basis for identity, becomes blurred for historical, political and sociocultural reasons, people may come to feel "homeless" and compelled to look for alternative means to develop the Self. In theatre translation, Hongkongers have found a source of inspiration to nurture their identity and expand their "home" territory. By exploring the translation strategies of various theatre practitioners in Hong Kong, the book also analyses a number of foreign plays and their stage renditions. The focus is not only on the textual and discursive transfers but also on the different ways in which the people of Hong Kong perceive their identity in the performances.

This book tackles the interface between translation and pragmatics. It comprises case studies in English, Greek, Russian and Chinese translation practice, which highlight the potential of translation to interact with pragmatics and reshape meaning making in a target language in various pragmatically relevant ways. Fiction and non-fiction genres merge to suggest a rich inventory of interlingual transfer instances which can broaden our perception of what may be shifting in translation transfer. Authors use an emic approach (in addition to an etic one) to confirm results which they often present graphically. The book has a didactic perspective in that it shows how pragmatic awareness can regulate translator behaviour and is also useful in foreign language teaching, because it shows how important implicit knowledge can be, in shaping the message in a foreign language.

'Exile and Otherness' investigates the exile experience in a theoretical and comparative way by exploring the possibilities and limitations of concepts like diaspora, de-localization, and transit-culture for understanding the lives and works of German and Austrian refugees fron Nazi persecution.

New Trends in Translation and Cultural Identity is a collection of thirty enlightening articles that will stimulate deep reflection for those interested in translation and cultural identity and will be an essential resource for scholars, teachers and students working in the field. From a broad range of different theoretical perspectives and frameworks, the authors provide a multicultural reflection on translation issues, fostering intercultural communication, knowledge and understanding, crucial to effective transfer and intercultural exchange within the “global village”.

This book provides a pioneering and provocative exploration of the rich synergies between adaptation studies and translation studies and is the first genuine attempt to discuss the rather loose usage of the concepts of translation and adaptation in terms of theatre and film. At the heart of this collection is the proposition that translation studies and adaptation studies have much to offer each other in practical and theoretical terms and can no longer exist independently from one another. As a result, it generates productive ideas within the contact zone between these two fields of study, both through new theoretical paradigms and detailed case studies. Such closely intertwined areas as translation and adaptation need to encounter each other’s methodologies and perspectives in order to develop ever more rigorous approaches to the study of adaptation and translation phenomena, challenging current assumptions and prejudices in terms of both. The book includes contributions as diverse yet interrelated as Bakhtin’s notion of translation and adaptation, Bollywood adaptations of Shakespeare’s Othello, and an analysis of performance practice, itself arguably an adaptive practice, which uses a variety of languages from English and Greek to British and International Sign-Language. As translation and adaptation practices are an integral part of global cultural and political activities and agendas, it is ever more important to study such occurrences of rewriting and reshaping. By exploring and investigating interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives and approaches, this volume investigates the impact such occurrences of rewriting have on the constructions and experiences of cultures while at the same time developing a rigorous methodological framework which will form the basis of future scholarship on performance and film, translation and adaptation.

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