Translation Studies: Retrospective and Prospective Views
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R O M Â N I A MINISTERUL EDUCAŢIEI, CERCETĂRII SI TINERETULUI UNIVERSITATEA “DUNĂREA DE JOS” DIN GALAŢI STR. DOMNEASCĂ NR. 47 Tel.: (+40) 236 - 414.112; 413.602; 460.328 800008 - GALAŢI, ROMÂNIA Fax: (+40) 236 - 461.353; 460.904; 460.426 E-mail: [email protected] TRANSLATION STUDIES: RETROSPECTIVE AND PROSPECTIVE VIEWS COORDONATOR: CONF. DR. FLORIANA POPESCU REFERENŢI ŞTIINŢIFICI: Prof. univ. dr. ELENA CROITORU Prof. univ. dr. MICHAELA PRAISLER Prof. univ. dr. NICOLAE IOANA Prof. univ. dr. ANCA GÂŢĂ REDACTOR DE CARTE: Lect. dr. GABRIELA IULIANA COLIPCĂ COMITETUL DE ELABORARE A PROIECTULUI: Conf. dr. FLORIANA POPESCU Asist. drd. DANIELA ŞORCARU Descrierea CIP a Bibliotecii Naţionale a României STUDII DE TRADUCERE – RETROSPECTIVĂ ŞI PERSPECTIVE. CONFERINŢĂ INTERNAŢIONALĂ (2006 ; Galaţi) Conferinţa internaţională „Studii de traducere – retrospectivă şi perspective”: Galaţi, 16-17 iunie 2006 / coord.: Floriana Popescu. - Galaţi : Editura Fundaţiei Universitare „Dunărea de Jos”, 2006 Bibliogr. ISBN (10) 973-627-349-0; ISBN (13) 978-973-627-349-0 I. Popescu, Floriana (coord.) 81’25(063) 2 CONTENTS ENGLISH CULTURAL AND TRANSLATION STUDIES Ruxanda Bontilă – The Literary Translation: Felicities and Infelicities 5 Violeta Chirea – The Author and the Translator: A Writer - Re-Writer Relationship 12 Gabriela Iuliana Colipcă – Negative Aspects in Poetry Translation 18 Elena Croitoru and Antoanela Marta Dumitraşcu – Modulation – A Translation Strategy 24 Ágnes G. Havril – Aspects of Testing English for Specific Purposes 34 Tamara Lăcătuşu – Translation and Interculturalism 43 Carmen Maftei – The Challenge of Culture Specific Elements 51 Gina Măciucă – Suggested Ways of Expressing ‘Aktionsarten’ by Resorting to Fvps. Contrastive Sketch: English, German, Romanian 58 Camelia Mihăilescu – From Psychoanalysis to the Symbolism of the Limit in Translating and Interfering D. H. Lawrence’s Poetry 61 Nadia Nicoleta Morăraşu – Challenges in Translating Proper Names from Dickensian Novels 68 Lidia Necula – Translating Literature/ Cultures 76 Diana-Elena Popa – Abusive Creativity in Humorous Literary Translation 88 Diana-Elena Popa – The Who and Why in Ethnic Humour. A Brief Theoretical Introspection 92 Floriana Popescu – Translating Toponyms in English Idioms 97 Teodora Popescu – Teaching Translation to ESP Students 103 Ioana Sasu-Bolba - Translating Religious Poetry (Equilibrium Within Conflict – Some Statements on Individuality and Social Consciousness) 108 Daniela Şorcaru – Translating Style: Language and Culture 112 Emma Tămâianu-Morita – Subtitling a Bilingual Film in a Third 118 Language: Some Paradoxes of Translation Anca Trişcă – Latest Views on Translation 126 Daniela Ţuchel – New Poets, Old Politics 132 George Volceanov – Appropriating Through Translation: 3 Shakespeare Translations in Communist Romania 138 FRENCH CULTURAL AND TRANSLATION STUDIES Carmen Andrei - Regard croisés sur les sens de la notion de belgitude sur le web 146 Sofia Dima – Sur les traductions en français du «best seller» de tous les temps: la Bible 158 Mirela Drăgoi – Les traductions allographes et auctoriales – œuvres de propagande culturelle 164 Ana Guţu – L’autotraduction – Acte créateur complexe : entre l’équivalence et la prolifération 171 Nicolae Taftă – La traduction littéraire 179 Angelica Vâlcu - Deux approches traductives: la traduction et l’interprétation 184 ROMANIAN CULTURAL AND TRANSLATION STUDIES Doina Marta Bejan – Traducerile şi rolul lor în formarea limbilor literare moderne 188 Alina Crihană – Romanul obsedantului deceniu: de la alegoria corectă politic la parabolă 192 Nicoleta Ifrim – Între Eros şi Thanatos: o re-lectură a ipostazelor arhetipale ale feminităţii bacoviene 204 Doiniţa Milea – Textul labirint sau dialogul privilegiat cu jocurile intertextuale 210 Steluţa Stan – Spre o negociere a relaţiei dintre semnificat şi semnificant. Prezentare sau reprezentare? 217 Anca Trişcă – Anglicisme în presa economică românească actuală 221 4 ENGLISH CULTURAL AND TRANSLATION STUDIES THE LITERARY TRANSLATION: FELICITIES AND INFELICITIES Ruxanda Bontilă “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi „Studii de traductologie” este o disciplină/ştiinţă de sine stătătoare care deplasează accentul de pe traducerea literară în exclusivitate pe tehnici de traducere, perspective analitice, act traductiv, comportament traductiv, caracterisici ale procesului de traducere. Teoriile traducerii din perspectivă sociologică sau semiotică analizează acele constrîngeri socioculturale specifice unei culturi, unei societăţi, unei epoci date, cu accent pe faptul că repetiţia unui semn este atât diferită cât şi deferenţiatoare (Bhabha 1994). Lucrarea de faţă îşi propune să exploreze modul în care studenţii filologi înţeleg mecanismul (scop, intenţionalitate, receptare) prin care traducerea literară devine exprimarea celor mai adînci relaţii reciproce dintre limbi (W. Benjamin 1955). Ne interesează de- asemenea perspectiva traducătorului consacrat despre felul în care traducerea contribuie la consolidarea unei teorii a diferenţei culturale. Counter-Disclaimer The present paper features real characters and situations issued out of the real experience of its author. Thus, any resemblance to known characters is intended and not coincidental, as the saying of current disclaimers goes. Describing an experiment The present investigation proposes to show how ‘Translation Studies’ may well assume the role of cognitive mapping, devised, on the one hand, to help us find our bearings in the ‘vast, abstract, and empty space of history’ (Jameson 1988), and, on the other hand, to make us take in responsibility as regards a transnational knowledge of the world. The seminar-case I intend to develop upon draws on the observations I made having concluded the practical course in literature with fourth-year students majoring in English, French and Theology. The intention of the seminar, which I have made manifest, was to warn students about the fact that what it looks like an ending of their scholarly endeavours is nothing but a perpetual renewal of the necessity to ‘remain interested’ (Updike 54) in 5 the vast fields of culture. The hidden agenda, which I have kept to myself, was cunningly busy: to have a feed-back on our own efforts/ achievements as ‘taste-makers;’ to make the students aware of the high-standards required in quality work performed in the fields of culture; and to check on how aware students have become that ‘repetition of the sign is, in each specific social practice, both different and differential’ (Bhabha 163). The prompting seminar assumptions and subsequent working hypotheses were: (1) philological students can, sooner than others, study culture through texts; (2) philological students can read in and through texts; (3) philological students can ‘translate’ cultures and can understand the language of culture; (4) they can formulate a context-wise, fallacy- proof, evidence-based argument; (5) they have acquired an intellectualization of regard into the text, necessarily seen both as intertext and pretext. The content of the seminar was ‘keeping an eye,’ literally speaking, on the Romanian cultural scene as described in the Romanian specialist cultural/literary press—Literary Romania; Cultural Observer; Old Dilemma; Magazine 22; The Word. The seminar was managed by having teams of six students scheduled to deliver 5-minute presentations in English, followed by 10-minute group discussions, on significant events/cases, extracted from the literary press, connected to general issues, such as: editorial news; the state of language; film production; music production; life of translation; Romanian/world political scene; history; etc. The students had to use and hand in prompts edited in English, including: title, author, publishing details observing any acceptable editing style, and a number of germinating ideas. The evaluation, we have agreed on, based on: discursive accuracy (oral and written), observing deadlines, seminar interventions, and seminar record, i.e. silence valorization. Here are some concluding remarks following our seminar endeavours—which had their moments of illumination too. (1) There is much fallacious argumentation going on because of the students’ too little reliance on such enabling skills disciplines like pragmatics—text/ discourse/ conversation analysis included; cognitive linguistics; literary criticism/ theory; philosophy; (2) There is a tendency with students to place a larger focus of attention on the foreground of the text (story, plot) rather than the ground (intentionality, medium) and consequently the logic, grammar and the rhetoric of the text in question. (3) There is a high frequency of ‘hackneyed slogans’ that students prefer instead of the natural language both in their native language and the 6 foreign language; this may be caused by the students’ shaky grasping of the continuities between creative literary language and creative language in everyday use. (4) There is a rather low interest with out students in keeping abreast of the cultural events from Romania as elsewhere on their own account (“Are you going to bring the magazines to us?” asked me one aspiring graduate student when I first broached the subject of what the seminar will consist in). (5) There is strong resistance to forming deontological habits, be it only to the annoyance of some nagging teachers deprived of the sense of reality. Translation/Translator/Translating: Postmodernist Clichés Since all the reading students were expected to do was in Romanian, they, by force, had to