Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English-language Translation Eva Dobrovolná Translating Native Canadian Culture in Eden Robinson’s Novel Monkey Beach Master’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Renata Kamenická, Ph. D. 2012 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Renata Kamenická, for her guidance and support in writing this thesis and beyond. I would also like to thank all the teachers at the English department who made possible the existence of the translation included in this thesis, as well as of other translations. Table of Contents 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 2 Translating culture ............................................................................................................... 1 2.1 What Is Culture? ........................................................................................................... 2 2.2 The Translator as the Cultural Mediator ...................................................................... 3 2.3 What is meaning? ......................................................................................................... 5 2.4 How Should Translators Deal With this? ...................................................................... 7 3 Holistic Approach to Translation ....................................................................................... 11 3.1 Making Choices ........................................................................................................... 14 3.2 Shifts ........................................................................................................................... 16 3.2.1 Generalization and Distortion ............................................................................. 16 3.2.2 Addition and Deletion .......................................................................................... 17 3.3 Non-intervention as a Strategy ................................................................................... 18 3.4 Adding Information .................................................................................................... 19 3.5 Paratexts ..................................................................................................................... 21 3.5.1 Paratexts in Tomson Highway’s Kiss of the Fur Queen ........................................ 22 3.6 Aboriginal Languages in the English Originals ............................................................ 25 3.7 Translating Aboriginal Authors into Czech ................................................................. 26 3.8 Example: Translation of Eden Robinson’s “Terminal Avenue” ................................... 28 3.9 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 32 4 Culture in Monkey Beach ................................................................................................... 33 4.1 Hybridity as a Feature of Identity ............................................................................... 35 4.2 Myths and Traditions .................................................................................................. 37 4.3 Tricky Ways of Narrating: Dismantling the Boundaries .............................................. 40 4.3 The Spoken and the Unspoken ................................................................................... 44 4.4 Language in Monkey Beach ........................................................................................ 49 4.5 Genre and Structure ................................................................................................... 52 5 Strategy for Translating Monkey Beach ............................................................................. 53 5.1 Overall Strategy .......................................................................................................... 54 5.2 Haisla and English in the Czech Translation ............................................................... 57 5.3 Other Culture-related Phenomena ............................................................................. 63 5.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 70 6 Translation Sample of Monkey Beach ............................................................................... 71 7 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 108 8 Works Cited ..................................................................................................................... 109 8.1 Primary Materials ..................................................................................................... 109 8.2 Secondary Materials ................................................................................................. 109 9 Summary .......................................................................................................................... 112 10 Resumé .......................................................................................................................... 113 1 Introduction Although culture can play a very significant role in a piece of literature and hence prompt the translator of the writing to mediate its role to the target audience as accurately as possible, it is difficult to find any hard and fast rules about how culture can be successfully transferred across languages. This might constitute a particularly complex problem in case of transfer between two cultures which are very distant and different from each other, as the danger of cultural misunderstandings is greater in these cases. With focus on specifics of translating Native Canadian culture into Czech, the thesis engages in detail with some problematic areas of translating culture and addresses obstacles that a translator is to encounter in the process; it also explores the possibility of applying a specific approach in order to tackle this difficult task. The core of interest is translating Native Canadian culture in Eden Robinson‘s novel Monkey Beach into Czech. The thesis presents a detailed analysis of various aspects of Native Canadian culture which are reflected in the novel and which are important for the translator to consider when translating the book; it also explores possibilities of tackling these aspects in translation. Based on the outcomes of the general discussion, analysis of culture and delineation of the translation strategy, the actual translation of a passage from the novel will round off the debate in an attempt to demonstrate the practical application of the chosen strategy and thus test its validity. 2 Translating culture One of the goals of this thesis is to look closer into how meanings of culture-related phenomena are rendered in specific translations. But if one wants to address any issues that concern translating culture in a piece of literature, the first challenge to be 1 encountered is simply determining what culture is. And immediately after that, another major obstacle emerges: discussing how culture-related meanings in the original writing are rendered in the translation requires delineating what ―meaning‖ is, or rather, what is our understanding of it. The approach to both these initial problems significantly influences the choice of strategy for translating a specific piece of literature; hence they will be addressed in the first place. 2.1 What Is Culture? Not surprisingly, culture as a concept has been granted much attention already. David Katan dedicates a large section of his book Translating Cultures to summarizing the debate about what exactly should be understood as culture. He admits that ―even though we all know to which culture we belong, defining the word has been notoriously difficult‖ (Katan 25) and that the outcome of such attempts heavily depends on the chosen approach (27). He chooses to focus on the constituents of culture which lead to ―a shared mental model or map of the world‖ (26) among those who belong to the culture, on ―what goes without being said‖ (26) within this culture and what is perceived as ―normal‖ (26). Still, the result is more an outline than a real definition. In her book Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translator, Tymoczko begins from a similar standpoint; she observes that culture ―is formed of practices that are to a very great extent not consciously understood‖ (Tymoczko 227). Hence culture as a shared map of the world or a system of behaviors could be more easily defined when contrasted with another such system, as without such contrasting, it is difficult to decide what constitutes the system: we can only recognize what we consider normal if we are confronted with something abnormal. However, as observers are often not aware that their own attitudes and behaviors result from their cultural background, they ―can also remain locked in the belief that their own cultural practices are ‗natural‘ and hence 2 retain an alienated stance toward the cultural other‖ (227), which shows that cultural awareness requires more than just cultural confrontation. Nevertheless, even a successful enumeration of qualities of a certain culture does not bring us