All 11 entries tagged Translation

self

Follow-up to Me from XIULU

Self

Not knowing which world to call home ,
He chose an arbitrary tongue and creed ,
Pitched an improvised tent on sand .
Beneath the canopy of a little star ,
He began his heart’s commerce with things :
was that the real me ?

By chance on his long trek he encountered an idol ,
Assumed the semblanceof a worshipper ,
Calling these men friends , those men enemies ,
Deploying emotions in their appropriate places .
The little shop of his life throve :
was that the real me ?

After a spell of prosperity he went broke ,
As if he had toppled his own dynasty .
The world cold-shouldered him , ridiculed him , punished him ,
And yet all he had lost was his crown .
Lying awake at night he brooded :
was that the real me ?

Meanwhile another world was posting bills for a missing person .
His disappearance surprised the vacant room
Where another dream was waiting for him to dream ,
And numerous rumours were ready to give him a shape
Hinting at an unwritten biography :
was that the real me ?

Xiu Wang : 18 Jan 2008 04:53 |  Tags: Translation |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Me

Me
Not knowing which world is the home
He chose this language, this religion
He put up a interim tent above the sand
Then enjoyed the shelter from the tiny star above his head
He started the emotional trade with things
Not knowing if it is really Me.

On the journey he ran into an idol
Then turned into its aficionado
Call these friends, and those enemies
Joy anger sorrow and pleasure are put where they should go
The small shop of his life is glorious and rich
Not knowing if it is really Me.

Prosperity for a time, and he went bankrupt
As if a dynasty overthrown by its own hand
Things slighted him, mocked him, punished him
Yet all he lost is but a coronet
Awake at midnight he does feel sad
Not knowing if it is really Me.

Another world posts a notice of someone missing
His disappearance surprised an empty cabin
Where there is another dream waiting for him to sleep
and many rumors waiting to have him made
All these indicate an unfinished biography
Not knowing if it is really Me

Mu Dan (1976)

Xiu Wang : 16 Jan 2008 03:50 |  Tags: Translation |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem

And the Oscar goes to…

And the Oscar goes to ‘The Departed’!
For a minute I felt speechless in front of the TV. It’s not that I dislike ‘the Departed’, but I do have a weird feeling.
To me, The Departed is simply an Americanized version of 2002 Hong Kong movie Internal Affairs. (By the way, I hate this translation of Internal Affairs, which totally burshed off the original buddist implication of the most unbearable way towards Nirvana.)
Like all the Hollywood production, The Departed has big star power: Jack Nicholoson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, but beside that, it gets from Internal Affairs almost everything that is needed for the making a brilliant movie: the bone structure, the story line, the tension, the cat and mouse chase between characters…And yet I bet very few audiences outside China will actually be interested to see the original play: a tensely structured and beautifully acted picture, and more importantly, a more subtle story with witty ellipses which invites the audience to fill up.
This might be an unfair comment, since I watched Internal Affairs first, and I love the Hong Kong actors. But comparing with the big success and fame The Departed has got, I still felt more credit should have been given to Internal Affairs, as I firmly believe ‘good story makes good movie’.
Tonight in a most unexpected way, I realized what a translation can achieve.
What matters is not what has been translated, but the question of who, and how.
In other words, this is a game of power. And perhaps unfortunately, this is a game we all have to play.

Xiu Wang : 26 Feb 2007 16:50 |  Tags: Translation |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

we translate whatever you need

Writing about web page http://book.sina.com.cn/news/c/2006-11-09/1041206082.shtml

A collection of 26 Nobel Prize winning works was recently published in China. A most odd thing about this collection, which involves more than 10 different languages, is that it has only one translators’ name on the cover. Who can be such an omnipresent translator?
When accused of plagiarizing former translations, the publisher explains that this collection is translated by Lisi (the name on the cover) and his translation company in the past four years.
Is it possible for a translation company to have so many competant literary translator in house, and to work out this project within a few years time? (considering the fact that the first translated versions of some of these books took dacades to come out) The translation circle expressed its suspects.
The picture below appears in the local media, with a note saying “We translate whatever you need!”----a “true” professionalist claim.
The question here is “HOW”?

Xiu Wang : 19 Jan 2007 01:35 |  Tags: Translation |  Comments (7) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Last Verse written by Saddam Hussein

I suspect to what degree this verse is translatable at all. Leave alone the heavy political implications, leave alone the doomed untranslatable register, leave alone the remoteness of the original language, leave alone the field and habitus of the poet, leave alone the mystified background of its production, a glimpse of the title itself refuses interpretation: a Florid Farewell——what could that be?A bloodily colour of red? An elaborated and extravagant style of writing?

I first came across this verse from sina.com, a Chinese website. And here is an attempted back-translation into English.

Let go

Let go of your soul,
My beloved friends.
You are the dearest of my soul,
And no one shelters my heart like you.

Outsiders intruding our home,
on the face of those who yields, Tears will eventually flood
We face the wolves with bear chests,
We do not tremble in front of the beasts.

For you and your country,
The soul I devote
In this hard time, blood is nothing but cheap

Attacked,
We never knelt or bend for honour
But even for the enemies, due respect we do hold.

I compared it later with the English version release by the Times.
Unbind It

Unbind your soul. It is my soul mate and you are my soul¡¯s beloved.
No house could have sheltered my heart as you have.

The enemies forced strangers into our sea
And he who serves them will be made to weep.

Here we unveil our chests to the wolves
And will not tremble before the beast.

I sacrifice my soul for you and for our nation
Blood is cheap in hard times

We never kneel or bend when attacking
But we even treat our enemy with honor.

I suspect if the English translation was deliberately made without a rhyme, so that it reads less like a poem. After all, it is not a pleasant link between Hussein and a poet. Besides that, the Chinese version and the english version I’ve got are sort of alike. Maybe the Chinese one was translated from English rather than from the original after all.

Xiu Wang : 09 Jan 2007 01:29 |  Tags: Translation |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Reviewing St. Jerome's Day on Christmas…

Writing about web page http://www.fit-ift.org

The history of International Translation Day

1992 – “Translation – the vital link”
1993 “Translation, a pervasive presence”
1994: “The many facets of translation”
1995: “Translation, a key to development”
1996: “Translators and Copyright”
1997: “Translating in the Right Direction”
1998: “Good Translation Practices”
1999: Translation – Transition
2000: Technology serving the needs of translation
2001: Translation and ethics
2002: Translators as agents of social change
2003: Translators’ rights
2004: Translation, underpinning multilingualism and cultural diversity
2005: Translation and Human rights
2006: Many Languages, one profession

Xiu Wang : 25 Dec 2006 01:12 |  Tags: Translation |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

translation and real presence

Translation and Real Presence ————–A lecture by Theo Hermans on 20th. Feb. 2006 at University of Manchester
This lecture is a reflective analysis of the relationship between the original and the translation.
Traditionally translation is believed as a form of derivation, i.e. the original gives a life to the translation. Such genetic relationship may not be the only possible explanation for what had happened between the original and the translation. In this lecture, Prof. Hermans brought out the concept and different understandings of "Real Presence". Through analyzing different historical approaches in reading this term, he suggests alternative ways to view translation.
Hermans started his lecture with three questions:
1.How does translation represent/stand for the original, and how does the original present itself through/under translation?
2.In what senses can we regard the translation and the original as the SAME?
3.Are translators entitled to make such a declaration as"This is my work?"
This last question is particularly central to Hermans argument as he tries to draw a parallel between"this is my work" and the Christ's "this is my body".
For anyone who knows a bit about Christianity, the scene of Last Supper should be quite familiar. Jesus Christ holds up the bread and declares: "This is my body". This simple statement left his followers centuries of argument. There has always been a debate on whether any real effective change occurred to the bread. Some believe the bread is only a symbolic icon of the body of the Christ, while some believe the bread becomes the body itself.
The second way of understanding this sentence, which later on becomes the general belief in most churches, is that this declaration of Christ actually turned the bread substantially into his body. This idea is known as "transubstantiation". Paclo Uccello illustrated this idea more vividly in his famous painting The Profanation of the Host, in which the bread is actually bleeding when some disbelievers stab it with a knife. In a sense, Jesus Christ's "this is my body" is speech–act, which has the most powerful strength to change the substance of the bread without changing its appearance, which can not be explained by any scientific reasoning, but only by that of faith and belief. "The eye of faith" should see beyond appearance. This demands "a leap of faith".
Hermans also mentioned other explanations of this sentence. Luther, for example, believe the body of the Lord is in, with and under the bread, which means the bread exhibits, instead of represents, the true, substantial, and real presence of the body. Another theory by Wycliff and Zwingli tries to explain the bread as the sign of the body, hence the"signifying quality" of the bread. Jean Calvin added to these explanations that this declaration actually set the bread and the body into affinity and similitude at the same time.
Hermans kind of suggests that if different understandings can be offered for the bread–body relationship, we might also attempt to reinterpret the translation–original tie. He focused his argument with "transubstantiation". By the Lord's declaration, and by the believers?? faith, the substance of the bread is changed. Correspondingly in Translation, Hermans suggested that the decisive moment is not the making of a translation, i.e. the process of translating, but the moment when the Author declares "this is my work".
It seems to me that Hermans is trying to say a translated text can be produced by the translator, but without the authorizing claim from its original author, the translated text can not be considered as a translation. This opinion can be backed up at least by the modern copyright law which stated clearly a translator only can be protected as the creator of the form of a text, while the substance of the text should be regarded as the property of the author. The translation should experience "transubstantiation" in the sense that the form/the visible is different from the original, while the substance/the invisible remains the same with the original. The decisive moment of such transubstantiation can only occur when the author authorizes his work be translated by making a declaration "this is my work". Besides the author, there is another important element for completion of the speech–act, which is "faith". The bread IS the body only to those who believe in the Christ; while the translation IS the original only to those who believe in the author's declaration.
Hermans stopped his analysis there, leaving an open ending for us to ponder. This is definitely a very daring and original idea in remapping original–translation relationship. If we accept such an analysis, at least there are going to be certain aspects of translation that we should revisit: 1) what is the implication of this "decisive moment" in translation in reality? In public domains that are not guarded by the copy–right law, such as internet, there are translations that never get any authorization from any author yet somehow enjoyed by a huge readership. How are we going to define translation then? 2) what role does "faith" play in this theory? "The leap of faith" seems to be a must for transubstantiation, which is illustrated by the painting of bleeding bread. The believers do not need the bread to bleed in order to believe it is the body of the Christ; therefore the bread is bleeding for the disbelievers so that they eventually have to believe, and experience a "leap of faith". Then can we expect something in translation, some thing vivid, or observable that can help the readers to achieve such "leap of faith"? 3) what happens if the author is no longer available to declare "this is my work", which is exactly the case when it comes to translation of all classics? Can we say that the translated texts for the classics are never going to get the chance to be recognized as translation? If not, what are those texts?
There are not going to be any definite and easy answer to any of these questions Hermans brought out. It somehow leads us to think again about the essence of transition, and the fundamental question of "what makes a translation".

Xiu Wang : 22 Feb 2006 17:00 |  Tags: Related Translation |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

responsibilty

Follow-up to translators in china from XIULU

This article is from XinHua News, 23rd, Dec. 1998. It is written in memory of the establishment of Central Editorial and Translation Bureau of China 45 years ago. The purpose is to eulogize the translators? virtues and achievements and to sing praise for their lofty lives.
In the news report, all the translators working for the bureau are aloof from worldly interests and material pursuits. The only thing they care about is translation. There is one deputy bureau director, who translates the whole collection of Lenin, died in his office because he overworked himself for too long; there is also a director of English section, who entrusted her child totally to her mother?s care because she has no time at all but for translation; and there is a new graduate who gave up all the other better paid and more promising job offers and joined the bureau to translate.
One might wonder: why are they doing these? The ending of the news report gave a very peculiar answer: they chose the career that will benefit the human beings, and therefore they are prepared to accept all the hardships and sacrifices.
An indeed stylized answer, I would say. I actually believe if I search for more governmental organizations, I will find all of the staffs there are working for the interests of mankind.
?The interests of mankind?, ?the benefit of human beings?, ?the glory of our country? and ?the prosperity of socialist society?. I am not sure how abounded the official discourse is in phrases like these. The more I encounter them, the more I feel chilled.
The sense of responsibility has always been key elements in ethics. Many people may proudly assert that it is the most precious heritage we got from traditional Chinese culture. In my opinion, however, this collective responsibility means no more than a slave ideology.
People claim to work for the future of a country or human beings, however, they never consider if that is something they should / can responsible for. When everyone in a society is claiming to be responsible for its propensity, most often what we will see is the society ends up in a disaster. Cultural Revolution is one example that comes to mind. After such occasions, those who previously declared to be responsible for their country naturally retreated from their grand and heroic promises.
I sincerely believe that only when an individual claims for something that he indeed wishes to do, and at the same time is able to do, can we regard it as a responsible act. Responsibility, after all, belongs first to oneself rather than to the far away goals. It is an internal RIGHT, rather than an external OBLIGATION. Individuality defines a truly responsible person.

Xiu Wang : 20 Oct 2005 02:15 |  Tags: Related Translation |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Translator: Should they be responsible for their work?

Follow-up to Salman Rushdie from XIULU

Salman Rushdie was in the arts center of the University of Warwick two days ago, promoting his new book. It is also the first time I saw how intense the atmosphere can be: police everywhere, you have to show all your stuff before entry?
We saw him, finally. The man who's life may be one of the most costly in today's world. And he sits right in the center of Butterworth Hall, smiling at us peacefully. With his witty comments and humorous speech, he filled the hall with laughter and joy.
I sat on the highest row, watch him, and keep wondering what a miracle it can be for him to survive till today. The miracle obviously is very expensive: it is said that British government alone is spending 1 million GPB every year on his security. Bodyguards, police man, detectives, even certain intelligence agencies? He somehow managed to escape from his fatwa and lived an obviously happy life.
I am not interested in politics, or religion. I didn't read his controversial verse at all. I was observing him only because I am interested in the translator, his translators. They were stabbed, one died, one severely injured. Protest against translation in Turkey brought the bump of the hotel causing more death. The question in my head is: should translators be morally responsible for what they translate?
If they do, why aren't they protected by the government?
If they don't, why are they killed?
The tragedy goes with more translators who translate in Iraq, during war times and conflicts. They are never to be trusted by both sides. The nature of their job determined their gloomy fate: the communicator between rival sides is never to be trusted by either side. When both sides need a translator, they treat him like a language machine; when they don?t need one, he got killed.
What is the role of the translator?
I didn't have a chance to ask Rushdie himself. But I do wonder, when he sleeps every night, with his young beautiful model wife in his highly secured residence, will it ever occur to him those names of his translators?

Xiu Wang : 20 Oct 2005 01:10 |  Tags: Translation |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Salman Rushdie

Writing about web page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie

Salman Rushdie (born Ahmed Salman Rushdie on June 19, 1947, in Bombay, India) is an Indian–born British essayist and author of fiction, most of which is set on the Indian subcontinent. He grew up in Mumbai (then Bombay) attended Rugby School, Warwickshire, then King's College, Cambridge in England. Following an advertising career with Ayer Barker, he became a full–time writer. His narrative style, blending myth and fantasy with real life, has been described as connected with magic realism. In 2004, Rushdie married for the fourth time, this time to prominent Indian model and actress Padma Lakshmi.

The publication of The Satanic Verses in September 1988 caused immediate controversy in the Islamic world due to its allegedly irreverent depiction of the prophet Muhammad. India banned the book on October 5; South Africa banned it on November 24. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Somalia, Bangladesh, Sudan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Qatar followed within weeks. The book was ceremonially burned in Bradford, England, on January 14, 1989. On February 12, five people were killed by police gunfire during a protest in Islamabad.

On February 14, 1989, a fatwa promising his execution was proclaimed on Radio Tehran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran, calling his book "blasphemous against Islam." Furthermore, Khomeini condemned Rushdie for the crime of "apostasy"?attempting to abandon the Islamic faith? which according to the Hadith is punishable by death. This was due to Rushdie's communication through the novel that he no longer believes in Islam. Khomeini called on all "zealous Muslims" to execute the writer, as well as those of the publishers of the book who knew about the concepts of the book:

In the name of God Almighty. There is only one God, to whom we shall all return. I would like to inform all intrepid Muslims in the world that the author of the book entitled The Satanic Verses, which has been compiled, printed, and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur?an, as well as those publishers who were aware of its contents, have been sentenced to death. I call on all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly, wherever they find them, so that no one will dare insult the Islamic sanctions. Whoever is killed on this path will be regarded as a martyr, God willing. In addition, anyone who has access to the author of the book, but does not possess the power to execute him, should refer him to the people so that he may be punished for his actions. May God?s blessing be on you all. Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.
On February 24, Khomeini placed a three–million–U.S. dollar bounty for the death of Rushdie. Rushdie lived for a time under British–financed security.

At the University of California at Berkeley, bookstores carrying the book were firebombed. On February 24 in Bombay, 5 people in a protest at the British Embassy died from police gunfire. Several other people died in Egypt and elsewhere. Muslim communities throughout the world held public rallies in which copies of the book were burned. In 1991, Rushdie's Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, was stabbed and killed in Tokyo, and his Italian translator was beaten and stabbed in Milan. In 1993, Rushdie's Norwegian publisher William Nygaard was shot and severely injured in an attack outside his house in Oslo. Thirty–seven guests died when their hotel in Sivas, Turkey was burnt down by locals protesting against Aziz Nesin, Rushdie's Turkish translator.

…

Xiu Wang : 20 Oct 2005 00:55 |  Tags: Related Translation |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem