Twice Heard, Hardly Seen: the Self-Translator's (In) Visibility
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nm u Ottawa L'Universit6 canadienne Canada's university FACULTE DES ETUDES SUPERIEURES 1^=1 FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND ET POSTOCTORALES U Ottawa POSDOCTORAL STUDIES L'UmveiMte canadienne Canada's university Patricia Van Bolderen AUTEMDEIXTWSETXUTHORWTHESIS M.A. (Translation) ___„_„„„„ School of Translation and Interpretation '"FAWL70COLE7D1PA^^ Twice Heard, Hardly Seen: The Self-Translator's (In)Visibility TITRE DE LA THESE / TITLE OF THESIS Rainier Grutman DIRECTEUR (DIRECTRICE) DE LA THESE / THESIS SUPERVISOR CO-DIRECTEUR (CO-DIRECTRICE) DE LA THESE / THESIS CO-SUPERVISOR Carla Foz Ryan Fraser Gary W. Slater Le Doyen de la Faculte des etudes supeneures et postdoctorales / Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Twice Heard, Hardly Seen: The Self-Translator's (In)Visibility Trish Van Bolderen School of Translation and Interpretation University of Ottawa Under the supervision of Rainier Grutman, PhD School of Translation and Interpretation University of Ottawa Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MA (Translation Studies) © Trish Van Bolderen, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 2010 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaONK1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre r$f6rence ISBN: 978-0-494-73848-1 Our file Notre r6f4rence ISBN: 978-0-494-73848-1 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1*1 Canada Abstract1 According to the most common definition, self-translation refers to a phenomenon in which author and translator are the same individual. Self-translation has been practiced for centuries, and research on the practice has increased noticeably over the past 15 years. Yet, two main observations can be made with respect to academic interest pertaining to this phenomenon: first of all, to date, there exists no critical review of research conducted specifically on this topic; secondly, although certain scholars have noted that self- translation seems to be overlooked within translation studies texts in which translation is discussed as a general concept, little data has been provided to substantiate the extent to which this might be so. Therefore, in this thesis, I seek to identify which aspects of self-translation have been studied by self-translation scholars as well as what evidence there might be of self- translation in publications on translation as a broader topic. This investigation also reveals that which has not been studied, allowing the reasons for and implications of these gaps to be addressed. Ultimately, this project sheds light on the under- representation—or "invisibility"—of the self-translator and of self-translation within Translation Studies. In the first chapter, I conduct an etat des lieux of research on self-translation specifically, noting which aspects of self-translation have tended to be discussed and which have tended to be neglected. The second chapter involves analyzing the tables of contents and indices of encyclopedic publications as well as the argumentation of theoretical texts in order to ascertain whether there is evidence to substantiate that self- translation is under-represented. In the conclusion, I propose various reasons for which self-translation constitutes an important area of investigation within Translation Studies. An aided, simultaneous self-translation from the French version, with assistance from Joanne Desroches. ii 2 Resume Selon la definition la plus courante, I'auto-traduction designe un phenomene ou auteure et traductrice sont une seule et meme personne. L'auto-traduction se pratique depuis des siecles, et depuis une quinzaine d'annees, elle suscite un interet theorique croissant. Pourtant, devant la recherche qui lui est consacree, on ne peut faire que les constats suivants : d'une part, aucune revue critique des recherches qui ont specifiquement traite de I'auto-traduction n'a ete faite a ce jour; d'autre part, bien qu'un certain nombre de theoriciennes aient remarque que les textes traductologiques traitant du concept de la traduction semblent negliger I'auto-traduction, peu de donnees ont ete fournies pour en faire la preuve. La presente these a done pour but d'identifier d'abord quels aspects de I'auto- traduction ont ete etudies par les specialistes de ce domaine puis quelles indices attestent eventuellement de la presence de I'auto-traduction dans les textes qui abordent la traduction de maniere plus generate. Cette recherche permet par consequent de reconnaitre aussi ce qui n'a pas ete etudie et de cerner la raison d'etre et les implications de ces omissions. Finalement, cette enquete met en relief la sows-representation— autrement dit, P« invisibilite»—de l'auto-traductrice et de I'auto-traduction en traductologie. Dans le premier chapitre, je presente un etat des lieux de I'auto-traduction, tout en notant les aspects autour desquels se sont orientees les recherches jusqu'a maintenant, et ceux qui n'ont pas ete examines. Le deuxieme chapitre propose d'analyser le contenu des tables des matieres et des index d'un corpus de publications encyclopediques ainsi que l'argumentaire d'une serie de textes theoriques en vue de verifier si les resultats peuvent soutenir l'hypothese d'une sous-representation de I'auto-traduction. Dans la conclusion, je suggere des pistes pour mieux comprendre les differentes raisons qui font de I'auto- traduction un sujet incontournable en traductologie. 2 Une auto-traduction simultanee (de la version anglaise) et assistee par Joanne Desroches. in Acknowledgements My sincere appreciation goes to a great many people, including each member of the supportive fifth-floor family of the Arts building. However, I am particularly grateful to: Rainier, who made it impossible for me not to rave about his mentoring skills on a regular basis; Jena, who validated everything; Luis, who calmly and happily offered solutions to each crisis; Christel, who enthusiastically listened to, read and gave feedback about my writing and ideas; Joanne, whose door was always metaphorically open; Dad, Sharyn, Deb, Greg and Cara, who consistently supported me in an endeavour they barely understood; Graham and Red Wheelbarrows the world over; and Chocolate, who both rescued and inspired me on an almost daily basis. This work is whole-heartedly dedicated to my Mum, Kerry (Greer) Van Bolderen, who, in various ways, set all of this up. And who would have been proud. IV Table of Contents 0 INTRODUCTION 1 0.1 Scope and limitations 5 0.2 Anticipated contributions 6 0.3 Methodology 7 0.4 Summary 7 1 VISIBILITY: CRITICAL ETAT DES LIEUX OF RESEARCH ON SELF-TRANSLATION 9 1.1 Which types of self-translated texts have been researched? 10 1.1.1 Visibility: Literary self-translation 10 1.1.2 Invisibility: Non-literary self-translation 11 1.2 How has self-translation been defined? 13 1.2.1 Visibility: Bilingualism 13 1.2.2 Invisibility: Multilingualism, biculturalism, multiculturalism, self-translation 15 1.2.3 Visibility: Textuality and language 17 1.2.3.1 Beckett and Babel 17 1.2.3.2 Alien Tongues 20 1.2.3.3 Bilinguisme d'ecriture et auto-traduction 22 1.2.3.4 English-German Self-Translation 25 1.2.3.5 The Bilingual Text 28 1.2.4 Invisibility: Physical or psychological self-translation 33 1.3 Which self-translators have been studied? 35 1.3.1 Visibility: Beckett & Co 36 1.3.1.1 With what frequency is a given self-translator researched? 36 1.3.1.2 To what time periods do these self-translators belong? 37 1.3.1.3 Into and out of which languages do these self-translators work? 38 1.3.1.4 With which nations/geographical locations are these self-translators associated? 41 1.3.1.5 How is gender represented among the self-translators researched? 43 1.3.2 Invisibility: Beyond Beckett 43 1.4 Why do people self-translate? 46 1.4.1 Visibility: Practical, artistic, ideological and personal motivations