Academic literature on the topic 'Reception of translation'

This thesis examines reader responses to Catalan identity through the reception of two Catalan novels in translation: Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal and For a Sack of Bones by Lluís- Anton Baulenas. Drawing on theories from Descriptive Translation Studies and cultural and sociological approaches to translation, it examines how representations of Catalan culture and identity are subject to influence from different agents at each stage of the translation and reception process. The thesis explores three areas: the role of translation within Catalan culture in the promotion of Catalan identity; the way in which this role is relevant to the translation process itself within the target culture; and finally whether the objectives of this role are achieved within the target market. This study offers a new approach to the study of the reader within Translation Studies, using blogs, online reviews and reading groups in order to gain access to real reader responses to translated literature and offers a methodology by which the study of the representation of culture through translation may be explored. The results of this study have relevance not only to translation research and practice, but also to translation policy, particularly for minority cultures.

The active scholarly contribution made by practitioners of theatre translation in the past decades has turned the research area into what is now considered a burgeoning field. Despite recent developments, it seems that performability, a long-discussed yet controversial concept in the study of theatre translation, would remain part of the practitioners’ discourse. Based on a historical survey of the production and reception of the translations of Anglo-American plays by Chinese actor-director Ying Ruocheng (1929-2003) in and around the 1980s, this study explores how the performability, or theatrical potential, of a translated playtext is constructed through the negotiation between/among the norms mainly operating on three levels—the textual, the theatrical and the socio-cultural—and the agency of the individuals involved. This thesis chooses to focus on Ying because he not only was one of the most successful theatre translators in contemporary Mainland China, but also seems to be an “impossible” ideal, considering his accomplishments in translating, acting, directing and as culture diplomat. Acknowledging that performability, which is essentially fluid and constructed, this descriptive-analytical survey will cover a whole range of possible activities involved in the production and reception of a translated playtext, and put the translator’s seemingly ideal status into perspective. The broadening of the scope of investigation is crucial to the outcome of this thesis, and recommendable to future researchers of theatre translation studies. In this study, translated playtexts and their stage productions are treated as the products of the receiving linguistic, theatrical and socio-cultural systems. The investigation begins with an evaluation of Ying’s practice against his stated translation principles to identify the textual and extra-textual factors that might have governed his work as a translator in reality. The discussion emphasises that performability cannot be realised through the textual medium only, before moving on to the exploration of the performers’ attempts to negotiate with his texts for theatrical enactment. The investigation, which examines the actions taken by the theatrical institution and individual actors in two separate chapters, draws attention to the roles of the translational, theatrical and socio-cultural norms and the power dynamics between the translator and his theatrical collaborators in their efforts to ‘ensure’ or create performability. The discussion is followed by an analysis concentrating on Ying’s role as a mediator within the production process and between the productions and the target environment, which is crucial to the achievement of both the immediate success of the productions and the transfer of repertoire. The study concludes that while a theatre translator and his or her theatrical collaborators are subject to various systemic constraints, the translator can find more power in his or her mediatory role as a bilingualist and biculturalist and promote the performability of the text.

The purpose of this thesis is to find out whether theatre translation into Mauritian Creole can contribute to the formation of a national identity in post-colonial, multi-ethnic and multilingual Mauritius. There are currently fourteen languages spoken, many of which, as carriers of symbolic value, are often used as markers of ethnic identity. Moreover, the fact that they do not all carry the same socio-economic and political status has created a linguistic hierarchy which positions English at the top, closely followed by French, in turn followed by Asian languages and finally by Mauritian Creole, even though the latter is the most widely spoken language on the island. I argue that translation into Mauritian Creole is largely an ideological endeavour, designed to challenge the existing asymmetrical linguistic power relations, and to highlight the language’s existence as a shared cultural capital and as a potential force for national unity. I show how such an endeavour is closely linked to the political and socio-cultural aspects of the target society. This is done by using complementary theoretical perspectives, such as Itamar Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory (1979, 2000), André Lefevere’s systemic concept (2004) and post-colonial approaches to translation, and by drawing upon the case study research method, with its emphasis on multiple sources for data collection. The thesis examines Mauritian Creole translations of six plays by Shakespeare and two by Molière. I suggest that the reasons for choosing Shakespeare and Molière for translation are highly symbolic in the Mauritian context, where the educational system, a British colonial legacy, has continued to assign a privileged position to canonized British and French literatures; a system which contributes towards the perpetuation of colonial values. The translation of canonized texts is therefore intended to highlight the persistence of hegemonic socio-cultural values. Equally, it is designed to promote cultural decolonization and to point to the emergence of new creolized practices that offer areas of shared meaning for the Mauritian population as a whole. I also argue that since translation is an ideological undertaking, it is essential to understand the purposes of those actively involved in its production and dissemination. Because theatre texts can function as literary artefacts and as performance scripts, I look at the role played not only by translators and publishers, but also by theatre practitioners (producers, directors and actors). I explain their beliefs and their political agendas, showing why neither translation, nor stage production can constitute a neutral activity. In the process, my examination reveals the opposing forces at work which disagree over the way Mauritian Creole should be used in the discourse of nation-building. I then look at the intended target audiences with a view to finding out if the translations and the stage productions have had any obvious impact upon Mauritian society. My findings show that neither readers nor spectators are likely to have represented a large proportion of the population. Although this seems to indicate that theatre translation has had little direct impact so far upon the construction of a national identity, I suggest that in fact, its contribution to the Mauritian Creole literary and cultural capital should not be underestimated, as the language is very slowly emerging as an important symbol of the island. I conclude that should theatre translation be combined with other societal efforts in the future, it could still have a part to play in the formation of a national identity based upon Mauritian Creole.

In recent years, the number of studies of the audiovisual translation (AVT) of humour and its audience reception have increased (e.g. Fuentes Luque, 2000; Chiaro, 2004, 2007; Schauffler, 2012 etc.). However, no previous studies of the audience reception of AVT have looked at specific types of humour such as satire. A more detailed look into the textual and discoursal properties of satire (Simpson, 2003) reveal that satire is significantly different from other types of humorous discourses and thus, its translation should be studied separately in order to gain insight into the translation issues that might be specific to this type of discourse. Moreover, Mason (2009: 55) notes that enquiries into reader response would be useful for translation studies. Audience reception experiments should aim at seeking evidence of inferences drawn by actual users of a text and its translation as a means to support and correct the analyst’s findings. In light of these observations, this study investigates the audiovisual translation and audience reception of satirical discourse. In order to fulfil this aim, and as a case study, the British television programme (Extras, 2005, BBC Two) and its dubbed version in Spanish for Spain are analysed in the light of Simpson’s (2003) model of satirical discourse. This comparative analysis is followed by an audience reception test which has been carried out in order to elicit responses from British and Spanish participants regarding their interpretations of both source and target texts. The results of the study show that recurrent aspects of satirical discourse such as culture-specific items, intertextuality and taboo topics etc. often prevent the successful ‘uptake’ of satirical discourse amongst the target viewers. The study also proves that the use of audience response tests is useful in order to elicit viewers’ responses to elements of satirical discourse and their translations.

Texte remanié de: Doctoral dissertation--Faculty of humanities--University of Copenhagen, 2006.<br>Contient une éd. du texte grec de De la mémoire et de la réminiscence avec trad. anglaise en regard. Bibliogr. p. 245-254.

This thesis compares style in the ‘Todesarten’ [literally: manners of death] texts by Austrian author Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973) with their English translations: the novel Malina (Malina; Philip Boehm), the novel draft Das Buch Franza (The Book of Franza; Peter Filkins) and the story collection Simultan (Three Paths to the Lake; Mary Fran Gilbert). The fact that Bachmann was a woman significantly influenced the descriptions by German-language critics in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s of the author herself, as well as their evaluations of her work. Bachmann’s extended metaphors, ambiguity, iconicity, transitivity structures and intertextuality suggest that her prose texts, and especially Malina, should be regarded as proto-feminist masterpieces whose contemplation of the post-war human condition and society’s treatment of women were far ahead of their contemporaries. Boehm’s and Filkins’ translation choices show parallels with criticism expressed in German-language reviews. The reduction of the networks of stylistic features in the translations results in a weakening of the links between content, style and politics which are crucial to Bachmann’s texts. These changes mean that the English-language reader experiences Bachmann’s texts in a fundamentally different way. The male translators largely silence what I term women’s language in Malina and Franza, and consequently conceal much of Bachmann’s proto-feminist message. It is clear that these changes are not necessitated by the constraints of translating Bachmann’s complex texts into English because Gilbert, the female translator of Simultan, manages to recreate the texts’ style.

In the light of recent changes on the audiovisual scene in Poland, audiences can choose among different AVT modalities. Although voice-over still prevails on Polish TV, subtitles have become more and more popular as an alternative form of film translation on television. Due to rapid technological advances, commercial requirements and differences in Polish viewers’ preferences, it is thus crucial to understand how audiences at different levels of English proficiency (low, medium, high) retrieve meaning, especially complex ironic meaning relayed through different methods of film translation, such as subtitles and voice-over and the extent to which verbal and non-verbal semiotic channels contribute to irony comprehension. Wilson and Sperber’s (1981, 1992; 1995) echoic theory of irony has been selected as the theoretical framework, given its ability to account for multimodal irony in audiovisual texts as well as the significant importance of non-verbal semiotic resources in the generation and interpretation of irony. The study employs triangulation, incorporating descriptive, experimental and interactionist components. The descriptive component involves multimodal transcription (Baldry and Thibault, 2006) of selected fragments in which irony plays a pivotal narrative role. This procedure aims to determine what non-verbal modes contribute to the multimodal construal of irony and how it is relayed in the subtitled and voiced-over translations. In the experimental component, viewers’ eye movements are recorded using eye-tracking technology while watching subtitled and voiced-over fragments of Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). In the interactionist components, a questionnaire is used in order to elucidate how and/or whether they retrieve ironic meaning as intended by the filmmakers in the selected excerpts. The most obvious finding to emerge from the descriptive data analysis is that multimodal irony is not relayed by the film dialogue alone but, rather, in unison with non-verbal semiotic resources. The instances of multimodal irony in the two Sherlock Holmes films were found to perform narrative and comedic functions by combining the visual, kinesic and acoustic modes of film language. The analysis and comparison of SL dialogues and TL translations revealed two broad categories of irony relay, namely: preservation and modification. The majority of the instances of multimodal irony were modified in the subtitled version, while preservation is only sporadically opted for. In its voiced-over counterpart, the intended meaning is preserved and modified in equal proportions. The experimental component showed major differences in gaze patterns among the participants with different language skills in the subtitled clips. For instance, on average, LLPs spent more time reading the subtitles than HLPs or MLPs. Similar visual behavior, on the other hand, was observed among all viewers in the voiced-over clips in which the on-screen character’s face attracted the greatest amount of visual attention. The interactionist strand showed that the viewers retrieved the intended meaning to various extents depending on their English language proficiency. This data undergirds an assessment of the effectiveness of subtitles and voice-over in the translation and reception of multimodal irony on screen.