Cambridge Conversations in Translation - 23 January 2017 - Translation and Technology (Panel)

Caroline Summers (Leeds) Pauline Henry-Tierney (Newcastle) Jen Calleja (Translator) Moderator: Monica Boria Gender-based metaphors and analogies have often been deployed to describe the act of translation: the notion of a translated text as a beautiful but unfaithful woman (Gilles Ménage, 1654) and the translator as a violator or usurper of the author’s paternity (Schleiermacher, 1813) has continued in modern translation studies. George Steiner (1975), for example, compares translation to the male act of erotic possession and the necessary compensation that goes with it, whereas Gavronsky (1977) sees the translator as the child-rival of the father-creator (‘the phallus-pen’). These metaphors all reveal an anxiety about originality – expressed in patriarchal terms – and a strong unease about difference, i.e. translation, seen as feminine and derivative. Recent theory has questioned this gendered politics of authority and originality arguing that translation demands in fact transgression, and therefore traditional notions of fidelity often miss the point (Derrida, 1979). The emergence of feminism openly advocated the adoption of translation strategies (linguistic and otherwise) that foreground the feminist in the translated text (Simon, 1996 and von Flotow, 1997). Attention has also been drawn on the opposite phenomenon, the erosion of the gender-marked identity of certain texts (for example ‘camp’ or gay jargon) through the elision, pejorative or inconsistent translation of specific lexis (Harvey 1998). The panel discussion will explore the ramifications of feminist and LGTB translation theory today and the impact of gender studies on the theory and practice of translation. For instance, how has the increasing presence of women as translators, writers, and scholars shaped the translation and gender debate?

Jeremy Munday (Leeds) Delia Chiaro (Bologna) Moderator: Marcus Tomalin (Cambridge) Diversity, in its diverse forms, has come to characterise those modern nation-states that advocate the socio-political advantages of cultural and ethnic pluralism – and sociolinguistic diversity in particular (whether inter- or intralingual) has received increasing consideration (e.g., Mayoral Asensio 1999, Cotterill and Ife 2000, Stolt 2010, Federici 2011, Hansen-Shirra et al. 2012). Communities subdivide themselves by means of distinctive languages, sociolects, genderlects, dialects, and the like -- and, in different contexts, they deploy different stylistic registers with varying degrees of prestige and validity. Naturally, this situation presents paradigmatic problems for translators, since any extended utterance is unavoidably riven with regional, ethnic, socio-economic, and/or socio-political connotations that are strongly embedded in the culture of the source language. However, this also provides wonderful opportunities too, since translations can help to bring distinct cultures into closer, more sympathetic, contact. In his seminal work A Linguistic Theory of Translation (1965), John Catford considered various strategies for translating linguistic variation, noting that all too often a flattening or neutralizing effect predominates. Translation can, therefore, promote homogeneity rather than heterogeneity, often unwittingly. The literary critic Roland Barthes claimed that 'non-standard' forms have generally been treated inadequately by authors and translators alike, mainly because they have too often been deemed peripheral (Barthes 1984, 123). Yet attentiveness to such differences is sometimes unavoidable. It is a brave, if misguided, translator who renders the Italian phrase ‘mi fa cagare!’ literally into (say) Arabic, without considering its pragmatic implications. Nonetheless, such nuances are often hard to approximate. As Gillian Lane-Mercier has observed, all attempted renderings of non-standard forms inevitably reveal ‘the translator’s aesthetic, ideological and political responsibility’ (Lane Mercier 1997, sub-title). Consequently, whenever required to contend with instances of conspicuous linguistic variation, translators must necessarily participate in the fraught task of mediating diversity by means of language – and their decisions reveal much about their underlying worldviews and ideologies. This panel discussion will provide an opportunity to reflect upon the benefits and challenges of creating translations in socio-political contexts where cultural and ethnic diversity predominate

Viviane Carvalho da Annunciação (CLAS, Cambridge) Jennifer Harris (Fac English, Cambridge) Moderator: Monica Boria Within the domain of literary translation, poetry has traditionally attracted a great deal of scholarly attention (Holmes 1970, 1988; Lefevere 1975, 1992; Bassnett 1980; Hermans 1985; Eco 2003; Robinson 2010; Jones 2011; Reynolds 2011, Drury 2015). The constraints offered by rhyme and meter may sometimes appear to justify the statement (often attributed to Robert Frost) that ‘poetry is that which is lost in translation’. The notion of translatability frequently seems to defy the very essence of poetry since it is a literary medium in which meaning and structural form seem to be inextricably linked. Even proponents of strikingly different approaches to poetry translation usually agree that any expectation of absolute ‘fidelity’ (whatever that is) must necessarily be qualified or compromised in one way or another. But which aspects of a given poem can be safely jettisoned, and which must be doggedly preserved? Nabokov’s literal approach contrasts with Ezra Pound’s ‘remakes’, and the ongoing debate sparked by Paul Celan’s work offers numerous challenging and conflicting insights. From crib translation to ‘versioning’, from tribute to parody, from Bringhurst’s ‘re-elicitings’ to Queneau’s exercises in style – translation has been an important aspect of creative practice for many influential poets. This Workshop will focus on practical aspects of poetry translation in the 20th century, especially the role of the avant-guarde, concrete poetry, and French poetry. Concrete Poetry and Scientific Exchanges This talk is divided into two parts: the first will trace the use of scientific discourse in the creative exchange between Scottish and Brazilian concrete poets; and second is going to invite members of the audience to creatively engage with the poems by re-translating and re-interpreting some of the concepts the poets developed in their work. My hypothesis is that the concrete poets create this interdisciplinary dialogue as a metaphor for modernity and avant-gardism. The audience, though, is invited to reflect upon how science can be translated into art and how this creative exchange is able to renew both fields of research and knowledge. As for Concrete poetry, it is a term generally applied to a variety of artistic movements that followed the post-war frustration with traditional forms of art. Part of a collective search for new artistic materials, concrete poetry is the product of two traditions that emerged in the fifties, one of the Bolivian-born Swiss writer, Eugene Gomringer, and the other the Brazilian Noigandres group formed by Haroldo de Campos, Augusto de Campos and Décio Pignatari (Bann 7). Through a productive dialogue, Gomringer and Noigandres brought together these two distinctive artistic projects and disseminated the movement worldwide. Through this presentation, I wish to argue that their involvement with science is simultaneously, an attempt to update avant-garde discourses and enhance the interdisciplinary and creative possibilities of poetic discourse. Dr Viviane Carvalho da Annunciação is a Teaching Associate at the Centre for Latin American Studies (CLAS) and a Senior Member at Robinson College (Cambridge). She holds a PhD in Literary Studies from the University of São Paulo, where she also received a joint degree in Portuguese and English Studies. She is the author of a book on Northern Irish poetry, Exile, Home and City: The Poetic Architecture of Belfast (Humanitas, USP). It was during her lectureship in English Language and Cultural Studies at the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil) that she started to examine more closely the portrayal of Brazil and Latin America in English-language poetry. As a visiting scholar at CLAS in 2014 she helped to organize the exhibition ‘a token of concrete affection’ at St. Catharine’s College (Cambridge), which celebrated the fifty-year anniversary of the first concrete poetry exhibition. This featured the Brazilian Noigandres group that was responsible for disseminating the movement in both the United Kingdom and Latin America. Her current research interests also include Brazilian and Latin American avant-garde, poetry and politics and new methodologies in language learning. Translation and Metaphor Metaphors are an integral part of what it means to talk about translation, from the ‘belles infidèles’ of the 18th Century to pastoral ideas of grafting or transplanting, the ‘afterlife of the text’ or images of transportation or bridging different cultures. Indeed, the words ‘translation’ and ‘metaphor’ share a common image of carrying something across a boundary, and as according to Aristotle metaphor proceeds by means of analogy or similarity, the same concept of similarity or resemblance is also at stake in translation. My research looks at American translations of 20th Century French poetry, reading originals and translations alongside theory to explore ways in which a series of metaphors can be brought out through them. These metaphors, of mirroring, or fragmentation and of repetition, combine to construct a thesis on the relationship between similarity and translation. In this talk I will specifically discuss the metaphor of repetition, because it has very much the same thing at stake as both translation and metaphor itself, ie the question of similarity. I will talk about Jennifer Moxley’s translation of Jacqueline Risset’s collection of poems entitled The Translation Begins, in the context of Deleuze’s writing on repetition as difference. After this I intend to open it up to the audience to discuss their own favourite metaphors for translation, and what information we can glean from these metaphors about how we view the original, the translated text, the reader, and the translation process. Finally I hope to bring in some pieces of poetry which I will ask people to have a go at translating through the lenses of specific metaphors, so that we can discuss how this exercise affects the finished product. Jenny Harris is a fourth-year PhD student in the English department at the University of Cambridge. She studied for her BA in French also in Cambridge, with a year abroad at the ENS in Lyon, where she took courses in comparative literature, theatre and creative writing. After her BA, she moved into Translation Studies and into the English department, where she has since completed an MPhil in Criticism and Culture, with a dissertation on John Ashbery’s French translations. Her PhD is on the concept of similarity in translation, and the metaphors used to describe translation, focusing on twentieth-century French poetry translated in America, among them Guillaume Apollinaire, Edmond Jabès and Jacqueline Risset, alongside the theoretical work of Walter Benjamin, Gilles Deleuze, Michael Cronin and Jacques Derrida. Jenny has presented her work internationally, including at the meeting of the International Comparative Literature Association in Vienna in summer 2016, and at Princeton University as part of a graduate conference on Modernist Fragmentation. Alongside her research, she is currently an Associate Lecturer for a course on World Literature at Anglia Ruskin University.

Manuela Perteghella (The Creative Literary Studio) TransARTation! Wandering texts, travelling objects

Translation and Multimodality: Rosa van Hensbergen Films Because the speaker, Rosa van Hensbergen, could not be present on the day of the Translation and Multimodality conference at CRASSH, she prepared two short b/w films to reflect on Japanese experimental performance, in particular the butoh work of Hijikata Tatsumi and the performance work of Dumb Type founder Furuhashi Teiji. Projected at the same time, one above the other, on the side wall of our seminar room, the features included extracts from the performers' work (top film) and van Hensbergen's commentary and other visual / textual material (bottom film).

Session 1 Gunther Kress (UCL)-Translation in a social semiotic multimodal approach: from bottom up, right to left, inside out In my talk I try to imagine and sketch what a social semiotic and multimodal approach to translation might be about, what it might be like, what it might encompass -- and how it might differ from a more traditional approach. As I assume that many in the audience will have no knowledge of what either Social Semiotics or Multimodality are, I will briefly say something about these two topics. Using an entirely conventional definition of 'translation' -- "a carrying across, removal, transporting; transfer of meaning" -- I will explore how the terms in that definition might be thought about in a Social Semiotic / Multimodal approach. One part of my interest is the issue of “naming”: that is, to what extent the existing terms continue to be useful / useable or not -- terms such as language, transcription, representation, transformation. The other part of my interest -- in relation to Multimodality specifically -- is the question of the availability of apt notational resources for the process of “transporting” of meaning. The third point is the very question of “transporting meaning” itself: that of course is not new in discussions of translation, but might be worth looking at from a social semiotic perspective.

Youssef Taha (BBC journalist and translator) Any text can be read as an expression of a given culture or ideology. The translated text, in mediating the author’s voice through that of the translator, presents a complex juxtaposition of ideological viewpoints. As Bassnett and Lefevere state in the introduction to the volume Translation, History and Culture, ‘Translation, like all (re)writings, is never innocent’ (1990). In the late 1980s and early 90s, the so-called Manipulation School stressed the power of translation to convey an ideological message that does not necessarily replicate – and can sometimes invert – that of the original text. According to this view, ‘all translation implies a degree of manipulation of the source text for a certain purpose’ (Hermans 1985). Censorship refers broadly to the suppression or distortion of information intended to prevent the dissemination of ideas which run counter to the prevailing ideology or notions of decorum. Censorship is typically exerted by oppressive regimes, but even within what we like to think of as free societies some forms of censorship are felt to be necessary. The work of the censor and that of the translator are related in many ways. As Boase-Beier and Holman put it, ‘both are gatekeepers, standing at crucial points of control, monitoring what comes in and what stays outside any given cultural or linguistic territory’ (1998). It is often difficult to distinguish between institutional control and the more subtle forms of control determined by social norms (Timockzco 2009). Translators are sometimes willing censors. At other times they are subject to censorship themselves. What is the translator’s ethical responsibility? Is it ever legitimate for censorship to be channelled through translation? What means of resistance to institutional censorship are available to the translator?

Francesca Billiani (Manchester) Federico Federici (UCL) Rory Finnin (Cambridge) Any text can be read as an expression of a given culture or ideology. The translated text, in mediating the author’s voice through that of the translator, presents a complex juxtaposition of ideological viewpoints. As Bassnett and Lefevere state in the introduction to the volume Translation, History and Culture, ‘Translation, like all (re)writings, is never innocent’ (1990). In the late 1980s and early 90s, the so-called Manipulation School stressed the power of translation to convey an ideological message that does not necessarily replicate – and can sometimes invert – that of the original text. According to this view, ‘all translation implies a degree of manipulation of the source text for a certain purpose’ (Hermans 1985). Censorship refers broadly to the suppression or distortion of information intended to prevent the dissemination of ideas which run counter to the prevailing ideology or notions of decorum. Censorship is typically exerted by oppressive regimes, but even within what we like to think of as free societies some forms of censorship are felt to be necessary. The work of the censor and that of the translator are related in many ways. As Boase-Beier and Holman put it, ‘both are gatekeepers, standing at crucial points of control, monitoring what comes in and what stays outside any given cultural or linguistic territory’ (1998). It is often difficult to distinguish between institutional control and the more subtle forms of control determined by social norms (Timockzco 2009). Translators are sometimes willing censors. At other times they are subject to censorship themselves. What is the translator’s ethical responsibility? Is it ever legitimate for censorship to be channelled through translation? What means of resistance to institutional censorship are available to the translator? The panel discussion intends to address some of the pressing questions on censorship and translation that have been the object of research in recent years. Experts in this field will reflect upon the linguistic, cultural, and socio-political implications of translation ventures that are situated close to conflict zones (of one kind or another).

Professor Andrew Rothwell (Swansea) Abstract In recent years, the art of translation has witnessed an unprecedented technological revolution. For many people, websites such as Google Translate are rapidly becoming the primary resource for obtaining a rough-and-ready translation of a given source-language text. If a Hungarian rendering of the first sentence of this current paragraph is required, then it can be obtained instantaneously: ‘Az elmúlt években, a művészet fordítás tanúja technológiai forradalmat’. The need for long years of patient tussling with conjugations, declensions, and the mysteries of vowel harmony is (seemingly) eliminated. However, few of the so-called ‘naïve users’ of these online translation systems know how they work. And even if they are dimly aware that some kind of modelling is being deployed, they generally do not know how or why it is applied, or whether a given system is rule-based, example-based, or statistical in nature (Trujillo 2012; Bhattacharyya 2015). Yet in order to evaluate the significance of any such systems, it is important to understand how they are trained, what kinds of bilingual corpora are used, and which particular kinds of linguistic patterns are modelled. There are also important distinctions between the kinds of texts translated. Machine translation systems struggle with poetry, but cope more successfully with certain kinds of genre-specific technical writing.

Adrià de Gispert (Cambridge) Marcus Tomalin (Cambridge) In recent years, the art of translation has witnessed an unprecedented technological revolution. For many people, websites such as Google Translate are rapidly becoming the primary resource for obtaining a rough-and-ready translation of a given source-language text. If a Hungarian rendering of the first sentence of this current paragraph is required, then it can be obtained instantaneously: ‘Az elmúlt években, a művészet fordítás tanúja technológiai forradalmat’. The need for long years of patient tussling with conjugations, declensions, and the mysteries of vowel harmony is (seemingly) eliminated. However, few of the so-called ‘naïve users’ of these online translation systems know how they work. And even if they are dimly aware that some kind of modelling is being deployed, they generally do not know how or why it is applied, or whether a given system is rule-based, example-based, or statistical in nature (Trujillo 2012; Bhattacharyya 2015). Yet in order to evaluate the significance of any such systems, it is important to understand how they are trained, what kinds of bilingual corpora are used, and which particular kinds of linguistic patterns are modelled. There are also important distinctions between the kinds of texts translated. Machine translation systems struggle with poetry, but cope more successfully with certain kinds of genre-specific technical writing. This discussion panel will explore different aspects of the impact of recent technology on the art and craft of translation. It will assess the professional contexts of use of machine translation systems, and it will offer a chance to reflect upon the overarching anxiety that such systems pose a potential threat to human-produced translations.