Othering the Otherness

Question 1

The two roads of translation

Answer 1

Friedrich Schleiermacher

1. Moving the Writer Toward the Reader

• adapting the ST to the cultural and linguistic context of the target audience. (domestication)
• aims to produce a translation that reads as though it were originally written in the target language, prioritizing fluency and ease of comprehension

2. Moving the reader toward the writer

• foreignization (the translator retains the original’s “flavor”, the reader may face unknown terms, cultural refernces etc)

Question 2

Berman’s 12 deforming tendencies

Answer 2

1. Rationalization (simplifying the text)
2. Clarification (reducing ambiguity)
3. Expansion (adding text)
4. Ennoblement (elevating lng. or style)
5. Qualitative Impoverishment (reducing richness eg vocab, syntax)
6. Quantitative Impoverishment (omitting elements of text)
7. Destruction of Rhythms
8. The Destruction of Underlying Networks of Signification
   (Failing to convey the deeper layers of meaning that are connected through the text, such as symbols, puns, or other literary devices)
9. The Destruction of Linguistic Patternings
10. The Destruction of Expressions or Idioms
11. The Effacement of the Superimposition of Languages
    Ignoring the ways in which the original text may layer or play with different languages or dialects.
12. The Destruction of vernacular networks or their exoticiazation

Question 3

Domestication vs Foreignization

Answer 3

Lawrence Venuti

• NOT binary oppositions but “heuristic concepts” designed to promote thinking and research
• can change with time and locations
• deal with the question of how much a translation assimilates a foreign text to the translating language and culture, and how much it rather signals the differences of that text
• bringing the author to the reader or the reader to the author [Scheiermacher]

Question 4

Domestication

Answer 4

Language Simplification.

Replaces cultural references, idioms, or settings from the source text with those more familiar to the target culture.

Style Adaptation

Alters unconventional or complex structures

Explanatory Additions

Omission of Challenging Content: Removes or alters content that could be culturally sensitive, controversial, or misunderstood in the target culture.

Question 5

Foreignization

Answer 5

Preserving Cultural References

Retaining Source Language Idioms

Maintaining Source Text Style

Preserving Unusual Syntax or Grammar

Use of Loanwords or Calques

Highlighting Cultural Differences

Question 6

Domes. + Foreign. strategies

Answer 6

Domesticating strategies

• Conform to the values of the target culture
• Assimilate the foreign text to support domestic canons, publishing trends and political alignments

Foreignizing strategies

• preserve linguistic and cultural differences
• deviate from domestic values
  restore foreign texts excluded from the canon
• recover archaic texts and translation methods

Question 7

Translator’s invisibility

Answer 7

translators „disappear” by:

• translating „fluently” into English, producing an idiomatic, readable TT, creating an illusion that one is reading the original (and that is what makes a T acceptable very often)
• Translators are often forced to be invisible for the book to be readable and easy to sell

Question 8

Resistency (connected to foreignization)

Answer 8

resistancy” is non-fluent, estranging style of translation that reveals the presence of the translator, highlights the foreign identity of the ST and protects it from the cultural dominance of the T culture

OPPOSITE OF TRANSLATOR’S INVISIBILITY

Question 9

minoritizing translation

Answer 9

emphasizes the foreign identity of the source text in the translation process.

• choice of „minor” authors
• adherence to the ST structure and syntax
• calques
• archaic structures
• juxtaposition of archaisms and modern colloquialisms
• British spelling in an American text
• jarring the reader with „heterogeneous discourse”