Albaglobal

Japanese Technical Translation a Quarter of a Century Ago

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.
Ayn Rand

lmost a quarter of a century ago, I returned from Tokyo to San Francisco, looking for a job. I had been living in San Francisco from 1982 to 1985, then moved in 1985 with my new wife to Tokyo (the US immigration laws required her to wait for an immigrant visa in her home country). Although I could have stayed in Japan longer—I had a job there as an in-house translator for a small Japanese import company—I realized that Japan would never really feel like home to me the way California did to this immigrant from Central Europe. It was not very hard to find a job in San Francisco right away, as long as I did not mind a low pay. I worked for a few months for another Japanese import company, this time in South San Francisco, then a few months for a Japanese travel agency, but I was bored and really unhappy with my work. I needed something that would be more challenging and that would at the same time pay more money.

Bringing the Best Western Classical Literature to Turkish Masses

Historical background

n October 29, 1923, the day Turkey became a secular state, a revolutionary law aimed at unification, standardization, and secularization of the educational institutions (Tevhid-i Tedrisat kanunu) was passed effectively closing all the religious schools and attaching all educational institutions to the Ministry of National Education.¹ Several other reforms in education followed with speed and enthusiasm. ² Turkey's system of higher education, was thoroughly revised when the University Reform Law No. 2252 was passed in May 1933. That law closed Turkey's only existing university, the Istanbul Dar'ül fünun,³ on July 31,1933 as a means of canceling all existing faculty contracts.⁴ The next day, August 1, 1933, Istanbul University was opened using Dar'ül fünun's physical plant, a small fraction of its original faculty, and over 30 world renowned émigré German professors under contract and on their way to what was their only available safe haven.⁵ By this very act "the word and the concept of a university first entered the Turkish legal terminology and educational life." ⁶

Professionalizing Literary Translation Education

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine how the role of literary translation teaching at university postgraduate level has changed over the last few decades. Presenting firstly an overview of the development of literary translation in British higher education, it is then suggested that literary translation programmes can currently be divided into three broad pedagogical categories. The third of these didactic groupings, the MA in Literary Translation, is identified and analysed in detail. The objective of this third type of translation programme is, in addition to teaching students literary translation approaches and theories, also to train them in the practical and vocational aspects of translation. It is therefore argued in this article that the traditional term 'literary translation teaching' does not fully cover the modern educational challenges facing teachers in literary translation at higher education level, where the objective is, in part, to prepare students for work in the literary translation market. It is therefore proposed that the term 'literary translator training' be used, in order to better describe and understand the increasingly professional nature of this field in current translation education at universities in the UK. By emphasizing the 'training' of learners, this type of translation programme, in addition to incorporating literary translation teaching, then takes into consideration the vocational and professional elements of translator education in an age where there is increased emphasis on professionalism in the translating industry.

The Effect of the Translator's Gender on Translation Evaluation

Abstract

This article is an attempt to investigate the relationship between the gender of a translator and the gender of the evaluator of the work of that translator. The researcher hypothesizes that if a male rater is to evaluate a translated text done by both a man and a woman, he would unconsciously choose the translation of the same gender and vice versa. To test this hypothesis, 6o (30 men and 30 women) senior students of the translation training program at the Maritime University of Chabahar were selected and participated in the experiment. The test included 20 questions; it was designed based on two translations of one chapter of a short story which was translated one by a male and the other by a female translator from English to Persian. Two of the answer options were the translations of the two translators and the others were wrong translations. The subjects were asked to choose just the one which was nearest to their own opinions. Finally, the data analysis of the study showed that the relationship between the variables of the study was not proved and the research hypothesises was rejected. The limitations and implications of this study, as well as its suggestions for future research, are discussed.

Key Words: Translation, Gender, Translator, Evaluation, Rater, Short Story

Translating Humor in Dubbing and Subtitling

Abstract

This article presents the results of an empirical study on how elements of humor from an animated American film (Shrek) travel across languages, cultures (Polish and Spanish) and different translation methods (dubbing and subtitling). The analysis is based on the method designed by a Spanish scholar Juan José Martínez-Sierra, which allowed to determine the percentage of original humorous load as compared with the load of the target texts in four different language versions (Polish and Spanish dubbing and subtitles).

Ethics 101 for Translators

We have a question: How should a Christian translator deal with wrong Biblical references in a work of fiction targeted at a Christian readership, since the Bible is The Word of God and target readers are likely to identify the mistakes?

The question—or something like it—was posted by our friend and colleague Betty Spíndola to a translators' forum sometime ago and we will try to find an answer to it and a few related issues here.

Because this is not the Poughkeepsie Journal of Theology and both authors are agnostics, we will tread very lightly on the matter of religion, but the fact that Betty—as so many translators—is a religious person and was referring to a book sacred to her cannot be overlooked.

The Bottom Line

Practical tips for practicing translators.

Q:

Dear Fire Ant & Worker Bee,

One of our best external translators cannot take criticism—something my colleagues in the in-house translation department used to laugh about, but which is getting to be a serious problem.

We always provide guidelines and background documentation up front, and make an effort to frame our feedback in a positive way, so I feel we are doing our part. We also pay well and promptly.

But he insists on arguing every (and I mean every) point, which means an author's request to change a single sentence or term takes on ridiculous proportions. What is the best way to deal with such an obviously skilled yet persistently contentious supplier?

Is Translation a Rewriting of an Original Text?

Abstract

Lefevere (1992a: xi) describes translation "a rewriting of an original text." This paper will reevaluate Lefevere's concept of translation through examining my chosen texts. In order to demonstrate how the translator of the example text transports the source text messages in the target language, some excerpts will be analyzed using a Systemic Functional Linguistics (systemic linguistics) approach which provides "a semantic account of the grammatical structures of the language" (White, 2001: 3).

Motocicletas, Internet y estrategias de traducción publicitaria

Introducción: publicidad — traducción

ublicidad es un tipo de comunicación que pretende decidir o cambiar la opinión sobre las cosas y la acción de sus receptores por medio de unas técnicas que actúan sobre el intelecto." (Bueno García 2000). Una comunicación publicitaria tiene los siguientes elementos: emisor, receptor, mensaje, canal, código, referencia y descodificación.

Internet permite combinar diferentes medios, y muchos de los mecanismos publicitarios empleados en esos otros medios siguen empleándose aquí.

El mensaje (M), el centro de todos los elementos, es el contenido de la comunicación. El emisor (E) es la persona o entidad de quien parte el mensaje, mientras que el receptor (R) es el destinatario del mismo. Por canal (C) entendemos el medio para la transmisión del mensaje; por ejemplo, la prensa, la radio, la televisión, Internet, entre otros. El código (Co) se refiere al conjunto de reglas y signos lingüísticos o no lingüísticos que permiten la comunicación entre un emisor y un receptor. La referencia (Rf), según Bueno, no es un conjunto de conocimientos comunes, sino una realidad concreta o abstracta que determina el sentido de una interpretación. Es decir, la situación en la que se transmite el mensaje contribuye a su significación. Sin embargo, para que los distintos individuos del grupo receptor consigan cierta interpretación del mensaje y para que se coincidan con la intención del emisor, no es suficiente la situación en sí, sino que también hace falta la intervención de los conocimientos comunes sobre ella. Los conocimientos comunes son la base de la comunicación social. El marco referencial tiene un sentido tan amplio para como incluir, además de la realidad concreta o abstracta, los conocimientos comunes y el contexto cultural en general. La descodificación (Dc) es la reacción del receptor ante el mensaje del emisor. Según cómo reaccione el receptor (satisfacción o indiferencia, aceptación o rechazo), se puede evaluar si un mensaje publicitario tiene éxito o no.

The Cultural Transfer in Anime Translation

Abstract

Nowadays the term anime, meaning cartoon in Japanese, has become of common usage in the international context. Originally it was coined from the English term animation, and then adapted to Japanese phonetics. Since the U.S. début of "Astro Boy" in 1963, the anime industry has continued to expand all over the world. It is no longer a sub-culture for a small group of fans; the majority of the new generation has grown and is still growing up in direct contact with the world of Anime translation (of Japanese culture) more than with the literary works. There exist a great number of websites of fans that are dealing with this topic; it is a sign of the public interest. Unfortunately, they merely make judgments that are often not objective. The present work is devoted to analyzing first the text features of the cartoons, second the examples of translations (Japanese-Italian) taken from a famous work, and, finally we will try to suggest a working method for anime translation. The goal is not to find fault with every single word and sentence selected by translators, but to identify the type of Japanese cartoon translation and to pursue the best way to deal with the transfer from one language into another i.e. from one culture into another.