Promoting discipline of translation
This seminar will explore the ways in which the city has become an object of translation studies - by investigating some of the recent advances in translation theory that expand the field. Work to be discussed, among others, are books by Michael Cronin, Doris Sommer, Emily Apter, Maria Tymoczko, Edwin Gentzler, Vicente Rafael.
In the study and discussion of translation, the reader has not gone unnoticed, and deservedly is becoming more important to translatologists. Readers of translations span a spectrum, from those who do not speak any foreign language, and urgently need a translation for instrumental purposes, such as a manual, to those who, in spite of their proficiency in the target language, choose to read a translation in order to exercise their powers of critical analysis.
Translation history, specializing in translation phenomena through history, has earned a niche in the hall of Klio, the mythical Muse of history. The knowledge system of translation history prepares for its research system as an inter-disciplinary subject. Then what is translation history? And what is its relationship with both history and translation studies?
The first seventeen years of the People's Republic of China (1949-1966) was a critical period for the newly-born modern Chinese nation to gain recognition in the international world. The same period also witnessed a unique translation activity, i.e. source culture-generated translation of a large number of classical and modern/contemporary Chinese literature into English and other foreign languages mainly undertaken by teams of Chinese and foreign translators in the Foreign Languages Press (FLP) in Beijing, a state-sponsored institute, in an attempt to reshape the image of China, hence rendering legitimacy to the newly-born nation.
The creation, translation and publication of love letters boomed in the1920s-1930s, a period of the Republican Era of China. Quite a few renowned writers or the young keen to be literarily known were then in an effort to publish their love letters or novels written in letter format, or to render the love letters of famous persons.
The translation of the Bible into Greek before Christianity took shape is well-known, but the translated nature of ancient Greek literature as a whole before Christianity emerged has not yet been fully explored. The present paper argues that ancient Greek literature was heavily indebted to West Asia.
This presentation will focus on the significance of translation of theory for the self-fashioning of a type of identity of the Japanese intellectual. After briefly outlining the significance of translation for Japanese modernity, the work of several translators of theory will be discussed.
In the past two decades there has been a tendency to politicize translation studies and other disciplines in the humanities, alleging that the dominance of theories originating from the West is the result of power differentials instead of academic merits. Scholars of periphery origin who embrace central theories and values are accused of "self-colonization".
While a rhetorical perspective on translation has started to attract scholarly attention, translation's impact on the disciplinary development of rhetoric remains unexplored by practitioners in the fields concerned. Even a cursory look into rhetoric's long history, however, would turn up much evidence of translation's crucial role in shaping up the conceptual and institutional contours of the art of persuasion.
Subtitles do not simply transcribe the dialogues of a film. Subtitles involve specific groups of audience and seek to enhance their viewing experience. Based on this function of subtitling, I examine the Chinese/Cantonese subtitles provided in the DVDs of two films: The Brothers Grimm (2005) and Shrek 2 (2004).
