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Showing posts with label Translation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Translation. Show all posts

Saturday, August 07, 2010

UGC Sponsored National Seminar on Linguistic and Literary Terrain of Translation Salesian College, Sonada - A Report

Seminar dates : 30-31 July 2010

The Seminar had scholars from different kinds of institutions and from different parts of the country. There were two scholars from Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi, a Philosopher from Assam University, from Bangalore, and many part of West Bengal.

Since the organisers had tried this diversity and had insisted on the full papers being sent before the seminar, the seminar proved to be a productive one with very serious discussion shaping up during the course of deliberations. The outcome of the deliberations made the seminar very special to me.

What I also liked was the careful scheduling of the papers. There were only six papers each for the day. That is, three in the forenoon session and three in the afternoon. This structure gave sufficient time for scholars to present their views and later engage in a serious discussion, something which is sacrificed in many seminars.

The seminar was clearly not held with the primary focus on building records for NAAC or other such purposes but for creating platform to build research and academics.

Were there new insights? May be. For me the only new insight from the deliberations was the role of typographies in determining the relationship between the translator and writer of the ‘source’ text, which emerged in a discussion I initiated after the presentation of Prof Dipankar Sen. I had not seriously considered this so far in the context of translation studies. Other ‘carry home’ from the seminar were, the distinction being made between Nepali literature in Nepal and Nepali literature in India, the canonical literature
in English vs theory divide as it came across from the interaction with Jamia scholars, introduction to a lot of new sources, new texts and newer kinds of engagement with translations.

I also presented a paper entitled “Reading More Intimately: An Interrogation of Translation Studies through Self-translation” You may find the abstract at the end or the report.

One other part I must appreciate of the seminar was the presence of Nepali writers and translators that was created in each session. After the deliberations of each session, established Nepali translators were asked to respond to the deliberation from Non-Nepali scholars. This was an important step in terms of creating a dialogue between scholarship in translation studies and practice of translation in Nepali. This gesture made the seminar locate itself clearly in the local milieu.

A journey to the place I visited confirmed that Darjeeling clearly remains a neglected territory by governments of West Bengal and India. Hardly any infrastructural needs have been attended to since the time of the British Raj.

Abstract of my Paper
While the poststructural turn has made the study of translation more self-reflexive, it has not made translation studies scholars rethink the fundamental assumptions of translation process, which poststructuralism should have. As a result, many practices in the nature of ‘translation’ have not only got marginalised but have got relegated to absence, within translation studies. One such practice is self-translation. This paper tries to read the process of self-translation closely and thereby raise critical questions on the fundamental assumptions about translation. The paper will conclude by positing self-translation as an important domain for scholarly engagement by drawing attention to its potential to make translation studies more nuanced.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Translation notes - MKU

I am a little busy. As and when I find time, I will put up notes on the following chapters. If someone wishes type them and send me I shall put them up under their name on my blog.

anil

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Types of Translation

Types of Translation

Translation theories were largely formed around Bible translations in the sixteenth century. Etienne Dolet is credited with the first formulation of a theory of translation

Dryden, one of the earliest English translation theorists, classifies translation into three types – metaphrase – word for word, line for line rendering, paraphrase – where in translating sense is given more importance, and imitation where sense matters in translation.

E.g.:

Horaces Ars Poetica trs by Ben Jonson - metaphrase

Virgil’s Aenid trs by Waller – paraphrase

Pindar’s two odes by Abraham Cowley – imitation

In 1789 George Campbell suggest three criteria for good translation

  1. There should be just representation of the original
  2. The spirit and manner of the original should be conveyed through consistency with the language of the translation
  3. The translation should have the quality of an original performance so as to appear natural and easy.

In 1790 Alexander Taylor in The Principles of Translation set up three different principles

  1. The translation should give a complete transcript of the idea of the original work
  2. The style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of the original.
  3. The translation should have all the case of the original composition.

Goethe suggests two modes of translation

First, the translator attempts to bring foreign author to his reader and through the second the reader is taken to the author. It involves the ‘adoption’ of the foreign writer into the native literary tradition in terms of its language and culture without sacrificing the spirit of the original .

Second, where readers are taken to the author involves a word for word, line by line faithful translation

In the twentieth century radical ideas developed about translation. Roman Jacobson classified the twentieth century translation into three categories

  1. Intralingual – rewording in the same language
  2. Interlingual – translation into some other language
  3. Intersemiotic – translation across media

Theodore Savory makes a comprehensive division into four groups.

First Group: Belongs to all statements of a purely informative in character such as those seen by a traveler like, notices instructions etc It has plain unemotional language

Second group: To this belong all popular translations meant for general reader.

Third group: - most important of all groups as it contains all scholarly translations of literary classes with commentaries and discussions on how good and how perfect the renderings are done by different translators in different times.

Fourth group: Contains all learned and scientific and technical publications.

Andre Lefevere catalogues seven strategies of translations

  1. Phonemic translations
  2. Literal translations
  3. Metrical translations
  4. Poetry into Prose
  5. Rhymed translation
  6. Blank verse translation
  7. Interpretation

Some more theories of Translation

  1. Medium restricted translation theories
  2. Area restricted translation theories
  3. Rank-restricted translation theories
  4. Text-type restricted theories
  5. Time-restricted theories
  6. Problem-restricted theories

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Important questions:

  1. Write a note on Andre Lefevere’s strategies of translation
  2. Write a note on Theodore Savory’s division translation
  3. Give a brief history of translation theories
  4. Write a note on types of translation

Translation 2006 question paper - MKU

MAY 2006 Paper III - TRANSLATION: THEORY AND PRACTICE
Time: Three hours Maximum: 100 marks

Answer any FIVE of the following.
1. Discuss the three essential qualities of translation.
2. Examine the nature of meaning and its function in translation studies.
3. Briefly analyze the importance of referential and emotive meanings.
4. Critically examine the history of translation.
5. Examine the comprehensive division of translations that Theodore savory makes.
6. What are the problems encountered in poetry translations?
7. Discuss the general rules laid out by Hillaire Belloc for the translator of prose texts.
8. Examine the procedures of machine translation.
9. Write an essay on transference.
10. Examine the three steps involved in the process of transliteration.