{translation-friends} New Book: Thinking Through Translation With Metaphors
- From: Ahmed Hassan Al-Maaini <amueini@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: mailing list <translation-friends@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:01:55 +0000
This message was forwarded to me by Zuwainah Al-Tuwayya
Thinking Through Translation With Metaphors
Edited by: James St. André
ISBN 1-905763-22-0, £22.50 (inc. postage and packing)
http://www.stjerome.co.uk/page.php?id=543&doctype=StJBooks§ion=3
The volume also includes an annotated bibliography of works centrally concerned
with metaphors of translation.
Table of Contents
Translation and Metaphor: Setting the Terms
James St. André, University of Manchester, UK
Abstract. Theorists of translation have persistently used a wide, at times
bewildering, range of metaphors to describe the translation process. Despite a
period of roughly forty years in the post WWII era (1945-85) in which such
metaphoric language was downplayed or even denigrated, recent developments in
metaphor theory have led to a resurgence in interest in how metaphors shape our
basic understanding of the world and may in fact lead to breakthroughs in a
wide variety of scientific fields. This paper first traces briefly the
combination of factors (historic mistrust of metaphoric language in Western
philosophy, the rise of logical positivism in the sciences, the linguistic
basis of translation studies in the post-war period, and problems with the
misuse of metaphors in translation studies) that led to the neglect of the
study of metaphors in a wide variety of academic discourses in the 20th
century, and translation studies in particular. Two developments in metaphor
theory that led to its redeployment are then briefly explored: the work of Max
Black and others on metaphor as cognitive instrument in the sciences, and the
work of Lakoff and Johnson on the pervasive presence of conceptual metaphors in
everyday language. Finally, the article situates the individual essays in the
current volume and suggests ways in which the study of metaphors of translation
may further enrich the field.
Something old
Imitating Bodies, Clothes: Refashioning the Western Conception of Translation
Ben Van Wyke, Indiana University-Purdue, University Indianapolis (IUPUI), USA
Abstract. The concepts of translation and metaphor are intimately connected in
the West. Not only do they share a common etymology in many European languages,
but both have been designated as secondary forms of representation in the
Platonic tradition. Consequently, translation and metaphor have undergone
similar revisions in contemporary, post-Nietzschean philosophy, which has given
them positions of primary importance. One metaphor that has frequently been
used to describe translation is that of dressmaking ? meaning is viewed as a
body and the translator?s job is to redress this meaning in the clothes of
another language. Using this common metaphor, I will highlight a common thread
in our conception of translation that has basically remained unchanged
throughout the ages, a thread that can be tied directly to Plato?s theory of
representation. Nietzsche radically placed into question this Platonic model,
beginning with a reformulation of the traditional relationship between metaphor
and truth. After examining the implications of his critique of Platonism, I
will turn to Nietzsche?s own use of the metaphor of dress, which will help us
recast our conception of translation by focusing on elements that have
traditionally been left out of the picture.
Performing Translation
Yotam Benshalom, Centre of Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies,
University of Warwick, UK
Abstract. Translators are similar to actors: they both assume altered
identities in an effort to modify a sign system and represent it in front of an
audience. They are both praised for being creative, but also blamed for being
technicians; treated as servants of truth, but also as masters of deceit. This
paper aims at further developing the metaphor of translation as performance by
isolating specific issues dealt with by actors and theatre scholars and
reviewing their relevance to translation practice. One of these issues is the
question of time concept: translators, used to revising their work when they
wish, may still benefit from strategies developed by performers who cannot go
back in time and correct their errors. Another issue involves impersonation:
performance scholars, like Diderot and Stanislavsky, have dealt with the
question whether practitioners who imitate a persona should perfect their
external performances or change their internal natures. The conclusions they
draw may be relevant to translators. The limits of this metaphor can be pushed
even further by adapting additional performance issues to the realities of
translation. The acting metaphor thus exemplifies the fertility of interaction
between translation studies and other disciplines and also contributes to the
status of translation as an art.
Metaphorical Models of Translation: Transfer vs Imitation and Action
Celia Martín de León, PETRA Research Group, University of Las Palmas, Spain
Abstract. Metaphorical models play an essential role in scientific reasoning.
Through analogical thinking, they guide the elaboration of hypotheses in
domains that do not have a clear conceptual structure. Traditionally, the
domain of translation has been conceptualized through different metaphors, some
of which are still used in modern translation studies. According to the
principles of cognitive linguistics, it can be hypothesized that the way in
which a person translates might be associated with the way in which that person
conceptualizes translation. Since metaphor is an important tool for
conceptualizing complex domains, conceptual metaphor theory offers a coherent
theoretical frame for both a systematic study of metaphorical models of
translation and research into the relations and potential interaction between
those models and translation practice. Following this approach, the paper
analyzes the basic structure underlying some prevalent metaphors in writings on
translation (transfer, footsteps, target, assimilation, reincarnation, and
projection) and the implicit communication models they assume, and puts forward
some hypotheses about the way in which each metaphor might influence the
translator?s work.
Something new
Western Metaphorical Discourses Implicit in Translation Studies
Maria Tymoczko, Department of Comparative Literature, University of
Massachusetts, USA
Abstract. Dominant words for ?translation? in most (Western) European languages
(such as translation, traducción, traduction, and Übersetzung) represent
central cognitive metaphors for translation, signifying such things as
carrying, setting, or leading across. These metaphors for textual translation
became dominant in the late Middle Ages, associated with pressures to translate
the Bible into the vernacular languages and encoding orientations related to
the beginnings of the European age of imperialism. In a densely woven argument,
this article demonstrates that the ascendancy of dominant contemporary
Eurocentric cognitive metaphors for ?translation? inverted Cicero?s
valorization of sense-for-sense over word-for-word translation, resulting in a
pervasive orientation toward literalism in modern Eurocentric expectations
about textual translation. The metaphors suggest there should be full semantic
transfer between source text and target text and that protocols for achieving
such results are possible. A central contention is that the strength of these
metaphors rests in large part on Western European sacralization of the word,
itself a consequence of the early Christian translation of the logos of God in
New Testament Greek as verbum, ?word (Word)?, in Latin translations of the
Bible, with the result that Jesus became equated with the Word become flesh.
This metaphorical conceptualization persists in vernacular translations of the
Bible into Western European languages to the present, contributing to the view
of words themselves as numinous and the valorization of literalism in
translation and other domains.
Squeezing the Jellyfish: Early Western Attempts to Characterize Translation
from the Japanese
Valerie Heniuk, University of East Anglia, UK
Abstract. Translation has typically been conceptualized as a bridge, a mirror,
a window through which we gaze at the original, a fountain from which we obtain
water when we cannot go directly to the stream, the action of carrying across,
and so on. Most of these images have lost their power to make us take seriously
how they filter or even distort what we see as being involved in the process.
Setting aside such dead metaphors and instead trying to think of translation as
the squeezing of a jellyfish, as one early anthology of Japanese literature
puts it, cannot help but force us to come at the problem from a fresh
perspective. When Japan opened to the West in the mid-19th century, translators
struggled to describe their experience of rendering this newly discovered canon
into a foreign tongue, and often ended up employing eccentric images in order
to do so. This article considers some of those images, including the jellyfish
one and a cluster referring to such chemical or alchemical processes as
distillation, filtration and sublimation. It thereby explores how translation
is conceptualized via figurative language, and thus how metaphor may constitute
a particular view ? if not a theory ? of cross-cultural transposition.
Something borrowed
Metaphor as a Metaphor for Translation
Rainer Guldin, Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland
Abstract. There are three major points of contact between translation studies
and metaphor theory: the use of specific metaphors to describe the functioning
of translation, the use of translation as a metaphor for exchange and
transformation within different forms of discourse, and the question of the
translatability of metaphors and the development of translational strategies
necessary to achieve this. There is, however, a fourth possibility that has not
encountered yet all the attention it deserves: Metaphor and translation share a
series of structural similarities and their history within the Western
tradition has been interlinked from the very beginning. Traces of this shared
but not always explicitly acknowledged history can be detected in the common
etymology of the two notions in Greek, Latin and English. Throughout history,
furthermore, shifts in the appraisal of metaphor have very often found their
echo in corresponding reappraisals within translation studies. Instead of
studying the different metaphors used to describe translational processes and
the theoretical points of view they imply, this paper therefore focuses on the
different theoretical approaches developed with regard to the functioning of
metaphor in an attempt to investigate the workings of translation and some of
the stages translation studies has gone through. To put it in other words, the
paper focuses on the meta-communicative potential of metaphor as a metaphor for
translation.
Metaphors for Metaphor Translation
Enrico Monti, Università di Bologna , Italy
Abstract. This essay analyzes the metaphors used by translation scholars to
define metaphor translation. The topic has elicited a surge of interest in
translation studies since the late 1970s, and here a corpus of some 15 essays
is taken into account, covering a diverse range of approaches to the issue. The
main narrative is that of metaphor as a problem in translation, which finds its
way through most if not all of the essays considered here. While not being
dissociated from the traditional narrative of a more general theory of
translation, in this specific case the activity seems almost doomed to failure.
This is also confirmed by a number of spatial metaphors drawing a borderline
space for metaphor translation and locating metaphors at the ?limits of
translatability?. A final set of metaphors identified in the corpus resorts to
the concepts of dimensions and forces, in order to allow a more encompassing
view of the figure and its translation. Such models attempt to move beyond the
narrative of a troublesome, unsolvable activity, towards a non-simplistic,
quantitative approach to the issue.
Yves Bonnefoy?s Metaphors on Translation
Stéphanie Roesler, McGill University, Canada
Abstract. Although poet-translators rarely share details of their craft, Yves
Bonnefoy is one notable exception. This article examines the ways in which
Bonnefoy employs metaphors to elucidate both the role of the translator and the
translation process. One is immediately struck by a group of metaphors Bonnefoy
employs to describe the relationship between author and translator, all of
which suggest friendship and intimacy and establish the translator as a
privileged interlocutor. Another set of metaphors depicts the translator as an
explorer. The translator journeys into the recesses of the poet?s psyche,
trying to decipher his thoughts in order to re-express them through another
poetic language. A third set of metaphors suggests that translating is less
about the original text and its author than about the translator himself. In
these metaphors, Bonnefoy invokes the senses: he proposes, for example, that
translating consists in feeding on the teachings of another poet. Last but not
least, translation is, in Bonnefoy?s words, an occasion for self-reflection,
suggesting a self-oriented and narcissistic process. Ultimately, the metaphors
used by Bonnefoy in his articulation of the translation process ask us to
reconsider both the translator?s role in the translation of poetry and the
profound motivations that lie behind this enterprise.
Something blue
Translation as Smuggling
Sergey Tyulenev, Cambridge University, UK
Abstract. This paper considers the epistemological and methodological potential
of the metaphor ?translation is smuggling?, in particular as it relates to the
axis of visibility/invisibility of the translator or other agents of the
translation process. The metaphorization of translation as smuggling is shown
to be a middle case between the two extremes: visibility and invisibility of
the translator, allowing researchers to overcome this simplistic dichotomy. In
the illustrative part of the paper, translation as smuggling is analyzed in two
domains: the social-political and the sexual. Examples are taken from Russian
translation history, mainly Boris Pasternak?s and Ivan Dmitriev?s translations
of Western European writers. The metaphor ?translation is smuggling? is shown
to be a useful methodological tool for studying translation as practised under
various ideological and ethical pressures. Under the surface of its text, the
translator as smuggler introduces a hidden content charged with a concealed
subversive mission. This content represents the translator?s own convictions,
sentiments, and anxieties not found in the source text.
Passing through Translation
James St. André, University of Manchester, UK
Abstract. In this paper I demonstrate that cross-identity performance, a new
and specific metaphor for translation related to acting, has several points to
recommend it. It covers a number of different but related types of performance,
including passing, slumming, drag, blackface, yellowface, impersonation and
masquerade. In each of these activities, a number of variables, including
appearance versus reality, the relative power relationship between representer
and represented, how knowledge of the Other is linked to knowledge of the self,
and the meaning of border crossing, lead to a spectrum of practices which can
be mapped on to an extremely wide variety of translation practices. The
metaphor also draws attention to the importance of both aural and visual signs.
The ability to mimic the speech patterns of others is crucial to successful
cross-identity performance, and this should make us more aware of the
importance of ?voice? even in written translation, to say nothing of oral
interpretation. Furthermore, various dichotomies in translation studies, such
as the visibility or invisibility of the translator, source norms versus target
norms and domestication versus foreignization, might be overcome, or at least
problematized, by the metaphor of cross-identity performance. Finally, I
suggest that there are links with post-structural attempts to dislodge the
author and the original text from their throne and open up translation studies
to a more radical vision of the field.
Appendix
An Annotated Bibliography of Works Concerned with Metaphors of Translation
James St. André
List of Contributors
Index
Ahmed Hassan Al-Maaini
PhD Student.
School of Languages and Social Sciences
Aston University
Birmingham-UK
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