PANEL 2
HISTORICAL APPROACHES TO TRANSLATION STUDIES
Chair: Zien Guo, University of Leeds
Equivalence as an Ideological Boundary in Poetry Translation
Tanya Fernández Escudero (University of Vigo, Spain)
This paper aims at offering a different perspective to study equivalence with regards to translation. The varied definitions of this concept ─equivalence as a strategy (Vinay and Darbelnet 1958), as an inherent feature to any translation (Toury 1980), as an illusion (Snell-Hornby 1988), as a belief structure (Pym 1995, 2007, 2010) and so on─ have created an endless debate, which has led most scholars in Translation Studies to ‘banish’ the notion of equivalence from their research.
However, translators ─or, in this case, poetry translators─ may not be so eager to cast aside the idea of equivalence, an idea which they seem to bear in mind during their task. Thus, our study will not try to provide another definition of equivalence or determine whether this is real or not, but to understand how poetry translators perceive it and how this perception influences their decisions. For that purpose, we have studied a corpus consisting of 18 Spanish translations of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and their respective prologues, in which translators talk directly or indirectly about equivalence.
Through this study we have observed how this notion acts as an ideological boundary that leads translators to make certain decisions rather than others, such as the preference for verse over prose (or vice versa). We consider that, as long as the idea of equivalence affects translators’ decisions, ignoring it can only create more problems, since we will not be able to understand the decision making process that takes place during translation. This approach, that could provide a solution to the issue, might be applied to other studies beyond poetry.
Exploring Translation and Chinese Feminist Movements: The Translation Practices of a Major Women’s Magazine Nü To Pao (Woman’s Messenger) (1912-1951)
Wenxi Li (University of Leeds, UK)
The importation of Western ideas, models, practices about women’s issues and beyond (e.g. liberalism and evolutionism) was essential in the birth and evolvement of Chinese feminist movements (from the late 19th century until 1949). However, while scholars know that feminist texts were often translated into Chinese by (and for) men intellectuals who thereby significantly promoted the movements (Wang 1999: 50-53; Chin 2006: 495), the potentially important relationship between the movements and the translation work of women translators who emerged together with the movements in Chinese history has been almost unknown. Despite some research on translation and feminist movements within the study of Chinese feminist movements (e.g. Gao and Wang 2016) and the study of the earliest known generations of Chinese women translators (e.g. Luo and Li 2015), little research seems to directly or convincingly address the above issue.
To contribute to filling the gap, my research proposes to carry out a case study of the translation practices of a significant women’s magazine Nü To Pao, which employed a group of exclusively female translators and produced a multitude of translations. Specifically, social theory of narrative (e.g. Baker 2006) will be used to study the relationship between major discourses on women’s identity in the movements and relevant narratives formed in the translation practices of the magazine. Additionally, sociological theory will be applied to analyze negotiations and tensions among different agents behind the hybrid agency of the magazine. In this way, the project aims to contribute to constructing the history of the earliest known Chinese female translators.
Translating Concepts into Cultures: On the Concepts of “Minority” and “Ethnicity” in Turkey
Gözde Serteser (Istanbul University, Turkey)
The concepts, as being the abstract designs enabling us firstly to comprehend and then to convey, solve and develop the concrete realities or metaphysical phenomena, are constantly transferred from one culture to another together with the ideas and approaches they have been built upon. The concepts, which cannot be considered independently of social, economic and political processes of the culture they are produced in as well as having universal qualities to be adapted to different cultures, go through both linguistic and semantic changes with the historical dynamics of a certain culture, and tracing these changes can be regarded as a necessity of fully comprehending the social history (Koselleck, 2006). Furthermore, concepts can gain further or different dimensions and be attributed to new meanings during constant cross-cultural exchanges, and translation activity plays a great role in these exchanges. However, the role of translation is generally ignored in discussing and analysing transfer processes of the concepts. In this regard, two concepts “minority” and “ethnicity”, which are regarded as important reference frameworks in the world politics as a result of globalization, were selected as the main parameters of the study. The study aims to analyse how and what societal and historical processes affected transferring the concepts of “minority” and “ethnicity” into Turkey by means of translating works on the given concepts. To this end, the given concepts are first synchronically and diachronically examined, translated works on the given concepts are thoroughly analysed, and finally examples about the echoes in the cultural repertoire of Turkey are shared. Thus, this can be considered as a minor attempt to reveal interrelationships between translation studies and sociological and historical studies.
The Role of Translation in the (Re)Construction and Preservation of Collective Memory: The Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature (1992) as a Case Study
Tamara Barakat (Durham University, UK)
Approaching translation from the perspective of Memory Studies, this paper explores the role translation plays in the (re)mediation, (re)construction and preservation of collective and cultural memory. It takes Salma Khadara Jayyusi’s Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature (1992) and its Arabic counterpart (1997) as its case study, which is one of the most comprehensive anthologies of translated Palestinian literature to date. The Nakba (Catastrophe of 1948) marks a key event in contemporary Palestinian history and collective and cultural memory. In the absence of a sovereign state to promote an official narrative of the Nakba, mediated collective and cultural memory, for example in translated literature, become the primary means through which Palestinians at home and in the diaspora assert their identity and counter attempts at the obliteration of their history and existence.
This study undertakes a paratextual analysis within the framework of memory studies. First, the cover of the anthology is approached as an intersemiotic translation of the text it introduces (Sonzogni 2011). The interaction between its linguistic and visual modes of communication in creating meaning and mediating memory is analyzed in terms of Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) visual grammar. Second, the manifestation of collective memory (Halbwachs 1992), cultural memory (Erll 2011), postmemory across Palestinian generations (Hirsch 2008) and prosthetic memory to audiences with no first-hand experience with the events (Landsberg 2004) in the paratexts is analyzed. Finally, the extent to which the translators and anthologist serve as secondary witnesses who receive, co-construct, and mediate memory is investigated (Deane-Cox 2013; 2017).
This interdisciplinary study positions the Palestinian issue within the emerging debate on translation and memory, opening up Palestinian cultural memory and identity to new readings. It reveals the multifaceted ways in which translation serves as a vehicle of collective and cultural memory and contributes to pushing research on intersemiotic translation into new directions.