Promoting discipline of translation
What is the nature of poetry, especially Chinese Poetry, and what is the nature of translation. Both are rooted in the tool humans use to understand one another called 'language'. But in the realm of poetry, what happens when we go from one language to another?
From the rendition of the sacred Hebrew text of Judaism into Greek about twenty-two centuries ago, to the translation of the Christian holy book into minority languages such as Tahitian and Gilbertese in recent decades, the enterprise of Bible translation continues to generate as much interest as passion among both non-believers and believers of the Judeo-Christian faith.
Growing awareness of the responsibility of the translator and interpreter in shaping geopolitical relations led to a surge of interest in the subject among translation scholars in the nineties and the early years of this century. Scholars engaging with issues of power and ideology in this context however tend on the whole to draw on historical examples which, while still highly relevant, have largely lost their political 'sting' - in other words, they are largely non-controversial, at least in scholarly circles: Irish history; British colonization of India; Spanish and Portuguese colonization of South America; gender and sexuality.
雖然對社會文化語境中真實口譯活動的研究已初現端倪，但這種研究趨勢目前仍未進入口譯研究的主流視野。正如Pöchhacker（1995）指出的那樣，過去一直處於口譯研究中心地位的對口譯認知處理機制的研究並不能完全代表整體的口譯研究，而對社會文化語境中真實口譯行為和活動及其所涉及的諸多因素以及諸因素之間的互動關係，至今仍未有深入的研究。本研究的目標是，中國語境下職業譯員現場口譯活動規範的描寫研究，將採用國家總理朱鎔基和溫家寶1999、2000、2004、2005、2006年記者會連續傳譯的現場錄音為研究語料。
A new Penguin Classics Book of Changes 易經 presents some interesting challenges. Which book? For which reader? Prof Minford will discuss some of the preliminary moves he is contemplating in this new endeavour.
Social concepts (such as translation, ethics, religion, theory) are widely variable across culture and language. How can academic disciplines be constituted without simplifying this variability and without becoming hegemonic? How can scholars avoid being trapped in the prison-house of their own language? How can scholarship break the confines of what has already been defined and developed?
A brief discussion of the general importance of metaphors as a way of breaking out of old frameworks of thought will be followed by an outline of how different types of translation may usefully be mapped onto various forms of passing (straight passing, blackface, whiteface, slumming, drag, mimicry), and how this new metaphor encourages the reformulation of notions of what the translation process involves, what the role of the translator is, and what some of its social effects might be.
Originally and etymologically, "translation" may have meant carrying across, but subsequently and metaphorically, the primary meaning of the term has come to be the transfer of literary and discursive texts from one language to another. Translation has thus formed a vital medium of communication and exchange across different cultures for over two millennia.
The development of Translation Studies in the 1990s was the natural outcome of an increasing fluid and globalizing world. But that development was preceded by one that was much more political, much more resistant and yet one in which the spirit of translation figured strongly. This was the emergence of post-colonial studies at the end of the 1980s.
We mostly think of translation as endeavouring to render an original text in another language without addition, omission, distortion or bias. But what happens when translators find some of the things they are meant to translate objectionable? What if the scene of translation involves a clash of values?
