New Voices in Translation Studies, an online journal published by IATIS has a new issue up.  In it are a number of interesting articles, including one on Japanese translations of teen fiction, including Harry Potter. 

ARTICLES

When Skopos Meets Logical Meaning in a Korean Bible Translation: implications of using clause combination as an analytic tool

Gyung Hee Choi, University of New South Wales, AUSTRALIA

[Abstract] [Article]

1-20

Contrasting Visual and Verbal Cueing of Space: strategies and devices in the audio description of film

Maija Hirvonen, University of Helsinki, FINLAND

[Abstract] [Article]

21-43

IPCITI 2010 Proceedings

Creating Personae: the translator’s afterword in Japanese translations of teen fiction

Isabelle Bilodeau, Nagoya University, JAPAN

[Abstract] [Article]

44-65

Online Paratexts and the Challenges of Translators’ Visibility: a case of women translators of the Quran

Rim Hassen, University of Cambridge, U.K.

[Abstract] [Article]

66-81

Found in Translation: Franco-Irish translation relationships in nineteenth-century Ireland

Michèle Milan, Dublin City University, IRELAND

[Abstract] [Article]

82-98

Publishing Contemporary Foreign Poetry in Post-War Italy: a Bourdieusian perspective on Mondadori and Scheiwiller

Mila Milani, University of Manchester, U.K.

[Abstract] [Article]

99-114

Translating the Greek Civil War: Alexandros Kotzias and the translator’s multiple habitus

Kalliopi Pasmatzi, University of Manchester, U.K.

[Abstract] [Article]

115-131

Co-constructing Dyadic Sequences in Healthcare Interpreting: a multimodal account

Sergio Pasquandrea, Università per Stranieri di Perugia, ITALY

[Abstract] [Article]

132-157

Chasing Ricoeur: in pursuit of the translational paradigm

Deborah M. Shadd, University of Ottawa, CANADA

[Abstract] [Article]

158-169

Translating the Author-Function: the (re)narration of Christa Wolf

Caroline Summers, University of Manchester, U.K.

[Abstract] [Article]

170-187

THESES ABSTRACTS

(This section contains abstracts of recently submitted PhD theses.)

Dialogue interpreting as intercultural mediation: integrating talk and gaze in the analysis of mediated parent-teacher meetings

Elena Davitti, University of Manchester, U.K.

[Abstract]

Translation in Lydia Davis’s Work

Jonathan Evans, University of Portsmouth, U.K.

[Abstract]

Between Irony and Humor: a pragmatic model based on textual analyses of literary works and their translations

Galia Hirsch, Bar Ilan University, ISRAEL

[Abstract]

Translating Conceptual Metaphor from English into Indonesian: a case study of translating economics textbooks

Karnedi, Indonesia Open University, INDONESIA

[Abstract]

Translating World-View: representational hybridity in Anglophone Nigerian narrative fiction

Susanne Klinger, University of East Anglia, U.K.

[Abstract]

Displacing the Mask: Jorge Luis Borges and the translation of narrative

Leah Leone, University of Wisconsin, U.S.A.

[Abstract]

Procedures and Strategies in the Translation into Malay of Cultural Elements of Rihlat Ibn Battuta

Idris Mansor, Universiti Sains Malaysia, MALAYSIA

[Abstract]

Contrastive and Translation Analyses of Medical Texts (English-Spanish): the Case Report genre

Carlos Arturo Muñoz Torres, Universidad Autónoma de Manizales, COLOMBIA

[Abstract]

Cultural and Textual Properties in the Translation and Interpretation of Allusions: an analysis of allusions in Dorothy L. Sayers’ detective novels translated into Finnish in the 1940s and the 1980s

Minna Ruokonen, University of Eastern Finland, FINLAND

[Abstract]

A Comparative Study of Gender Representations in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials and its Chinese Translation

Wing Bo Tso, Chu Hai College of Higher Education, Hong Kong, CHINA

[Abstract]

Translation: Unlocking the Mystique of Change – a theoretical experiment on “translation” as “postcolonial identity” in cultural globalization, with a case study on Hong Kong postcoloniality through the Infernal Affairs film series

Cynthia Sau-kuen Tsui, University of Warwick, U.K.

[Abstract]

H.D. and the Translation of Classical Greek Literature

Jennifer Varney, University Rovira i Virgili, SPAIN

[Abstract]

Lu Xun’s Fiction in English Translation: the early years

Baorong Wang, Zhejiang University of Finance & Economics, CHINA

[Abstract]

Penguin commissioned from director Woof Wan-Bau this adorable animation to celebrate the launch of the Penguin English Library, a collection of what they call the “100 best books” in the English language.  I wonder how many of my favorite books made the cut.

This poster shows one of Riga’s most famous public monuments, the statue of Lenin’s riflemen.  The monument is controversial since it commemorates a group of soldiers who fought on the side of the Bolsheviks, tried to establish Soviet rule in Latvia, and eventually became Lenin’s personal bodyguards. Today, some Latvians think the monument should be removed because of its Soviet links, but some think it should stay. Ironically, the Museum of the Occupation of Riga, which documents Nazi and Soviet wrongdoings in Latvia, is right next door.

The reason I like it so much is the homosocial, perhaps even homoerotic quality of the strong, tall, powerful, bold men standing together in camaraderie—qualities so often repeated in Soviet propaganda.  When I visited Riga last year, I was surprisingly touched by this statue and spent quite a while looking at it.

Here is another photo from Flickr, taken in 2006 by Swishphotos.

Roland Barthes, by Roland Barthes

Here Barthes anticipates queer theory before the word “queer theory” ever came into existence. 

Flashmob Copenhagen Style
Grieg: Morning from the Peer Gynt Suite

The online poetry journal Big Bridge has in its May 2012 issue a special selection, edited by Jane Nakagawa-Joritz, of contemporary Japanese poetry.  Among them are a number of Japan’s most interesting, avant-garde poets.  Among them are two of expatriate poets living in Japan (Phillip Rowland and Jane Joritz-Nakagawa) and two Japanese poets (Yoko Danno and Goro Takano) who live in Japan but write and publish exclusively in English. 

Arai Takako 新井高子, trans. Jeffrey Angles
Danno Yōko 團野葉子
Sekiguchi Ryōko 関口涼子, trans. Eric Selland
Takagai Hiroya 高貝弘也, trans. Eric Selland
Takano Gorō 高野吾郎
Tanaka Atsusuke 田中宏輔, trans. Jeffrey Angles
Torii Shōzō 鳥居昌三, trans. Taylor Mignon
Tsukagoshi Yūka 塚越裕佳, trans. the author and Judy Halebsky
Philip Rowland
Jane Joritz-Nakagawa

Thanks to the folks at Big Bridge for bringing more work from Japan into English.

Emil Gilels plays the devastating Bach/Siloti “Prelude in B minor”

三好達治 MIYOSHI Tatsuji (1900-1964)
「家庭」Household

Household

家庭

息子が学校へ上るので
親父は毎日詩(うた)を書いた
詩は帽子やランドセルや
教科書やクレイヨンや
小さな蝙蝠傘になった
四月一日
桜の花の咲く町を
息子は母親につれられて
古いお城の中にある
国民学校第一年の
入学式に出かけていった
静かになった家の中で
親父は年とつた女中と二人
久しぶりできくやうに
鵯どりのなくのをきいてゐた
海の鳴るのをきいてゐた

From YOTSUMOTO Yasuhiro’s introduction for Poetry International Web

To many Japanese baby-boomers who were born within a decade or so after the end of World War II, Tatsuji Miyoshi was the national poet, and his works appeared in their textbooks almost every school year. Those poems were perfect for classroom teaching: short and handsome, simple yet profound…

　　　Those were the days shortly after the poet’s death in 1964 at the age of 64. Nowadays, unfortunately, Tatsuji Miyoshi is not heard about so often, although his collected poems are still in print in several editions and there is even a poetry award commemorating his work. Most contemporary poets seem to consider him a poet of the past, whose poems might have played fine emotional tunes at the time, but lacked social and historical awareness. The fact that, during the war, Miyoshi wrote poems in moral support of the soldiers on the frontlines, if not for the regime itself, must have been partly responsible for such a view.

　　　But if you set aside the ideological judgments and appreciate the landscapes of Tatsuji Miyoshi’s poetry as they are, you will find an extraordinarily wide range of styles and extremely sophisticated techniques, which few poets today can match…

　　　The reader of his work feels as though they had known him personally, and it is his compassion more than anything else that is so touching. Tatsuji Miyoshi is a poet of attachment as opposed to detachment: he reduces the distance between himself and his object, whether it be a human being or nature, until they become one. His songs are born in that moment of togetherness. And yet, “being a poet”, as he wrote in ‘The Shore of the Sky’, he is also a traveller at heart: he moves on, trying to see beyond, “blinking it eyes at the scent of the tides, chasing after clouds that fly away” (from ‘The Lamb’). Tatsuji Miyoshi travelled rather hastily through the most violent and tragic period in the Japanese history. But he has left behind him the songs which are to stay with us for a long time.

Today is Poem Your Pocket Day
Thursday, April 26, 2012 

From the Academy of American Poets

The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends. You can also share your poem selection on Twitter by using the hashtag #pocketpoem.

Poems from pockets will be unfolded throughout the day with events in parks, libraries, schools, workplaces, and bookstores. Create your own Poem In Your Pocket Day event using ideas below or let us know how your plans, projects, and suggestions for Poem In Your Pocket Day by emailing npm@poets.org.

About this video

Each year on national Poem in Your Pocket Day, the town of Charlottesville, Virginia unites in a day-long celebration of poetry. The project is spear-headed by Jefferson-Madison Regional Library, whose staff recruit members of the community — students, senior citizens, local business owners, neighbors, and friends — to distribute poem scrolls throughout Charlottesville.

スリリング！古代英語で読まれる『ベオウルフ』の序文
The thrilling opening of Beowulf in Old English, performed by Benjamin Bagby

ベオウルフは、英文学最古の伝承のひとつで、英雄ベオウルフ（ベーオウルフ）の冒険を語る叙事詩である。約3000行と古英語文献のなかで最も長大な部類に属することから、言語学上も貴重な文献である。

デネ（デンマーク）を舞台とし、主人公である勇士ベオウルフが夜な夜なヘオロットの城を襲う巨人のグレンデルや炎を吐くドラゴンを退治するという英雄譚である。

ウィキペディアより

In celebration of National Poetry Month

腹語術

Ventriloquy

I walk into the wrong room
And miss my own wedding.
Through the only hole in the wall I see
All proceeding perfectly: The groom in white
The bride with flowers in her hand, the rites
The vows, the kiss
Turning my back on it: fate, the ventriloquy
I’ve worked so long and hard at
(tongue, that warm aquatic creature,
squirms domestic in its tank)
And the creature says: I do.

Dick Davis (1945- ): “The Translator’s Nightmare”
ディック・デービス「翻訳家の悪夢」

Born in Portsmouth, England, Dick Davis is one of the most brilliant and witty poets working in formal verse today.  For links to several of his other poems, including one of my favorites, “Iran, Twenty Years Ago,” click here. 

In addition to writing his own poetry, he is also the most prominent translator of Persian medieval verse, having translated the great Persian epic, the Shahnameh; an early version of the Tristan and Isolde legend from Persia called Vis and Ramin, and many other great works of Persian literature.  Davis now teaches at The Ohio State University. 

It was while I was a graduate student there that he taught me much of what I know about translation, and it was in his class that I did one of my first translations, Hagiwara Sakutarō’s “The Town of Cats,” which was published several years later.  It was in large part thanks to him that I started down the path to becoming a translator.  I still owe an enormous debt of gratitude to him.   

ディック・デービスはイギリスで生まれの詩人だが、長くアメリカに在住している。韻と律を踏む詩人の中で、最もユーモラスでウィットに富んだ一人である。その他に、中世ペルシア文学の最も有名な翻訳家にもなっている。ペルシアの偉大な叙事詩シャナメーと、トリスタンとイゾルデの伝説の原型とされているヴィスとラミンの他に、ペルシア文学の英訳が多い。現在デービスはオハイオ州立大学で教えている。

大学院生の頃、私はデービス先生の翻訳講座を取ったが、その講座で翻訳の理論と実践を初めて味わえた。振り返ってみると、その講座は翻訳家になる切っ掛けだったというのは、決して大げさではない。その講座の期末プロジェクトのために、萩原朔太郎の「猫町」を翻訳して、数年後にその英訳を本の形で出版した。十五年が経った今でも、デービス先生に心から感謝している。

In honor of National Poetry Month

MIYAZAWA Kenji 宮沢賢治 (1896-1933)
“Strong in the Rain” 「雨ニモマケズ」

This poem is probably the most well known, most often memorized poem in contemporary Japan.  It was discovered in the notebook of the great and wildly imaginative poet and writer MIYAZAWA Kenji upon his death.  Although there are relatively few translations of his work into English, he is currently one of the most beloved authors of early twentieth-century Japan. 

Miyazawa was from Iwate 岩手, one of the regions most devastated by the March 11, 2011 earthquake.  This film was created after the earthquake as a way of encouraging Japan in its recovery.  Reading the poem is the actor WATANABE Ken 渡辺謙.  Although the Chinese viewer who added the translation did not acknowledge the translator in the film, this appears to be Rodger Pulver’s translation. 

In celebration of National Poetry Month 2012

TANAKA Atsusuke 田中宏輔 is a Japanese poet, born and raised in the ancient capital of Kyoto, where he still lives and works as a high school mathematics teacher.  Tanaka has published seven volumes of poetry in Japanese, including an ongoing experimental series of postmodern poems called The Wasteless Land, which draws inspiration and quotations from wide array of sources ranging from pop music to classical Western and Japanese literature.

Sadness


1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + …… ＝ 1 

1 ＝ 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + …… 

1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + …… ＝ 1 

1 ＝ 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + …… 

Half+half of a half+half of a half of a half+half of a half of a half of a half+…… ＝1 

1＝half+half of a half+half of a half of a half+half of a half of a half of a half+……
Half+half of a half+half of a half of a half+half of a half of a half of a half+…… ＝1 

1＝half+half of a half+half of a half of a half+half of a half of a half of a half+……
Therefore, take half of sadness and treat it not as sadness.

Treat the half of the sadness that remains as something else.  

The half of the half of the sadness that remains is something else yet again.
Repeat this, and sadness becomes something else again, ad infinitum.

Yet even so, the thing that remains is the same as at the start,

The same single sadness from which it all began.

        — Translation by Jeffrey Angles

        Published in Inventory, No. 2 (2011)

悲しみ



1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + …… ＝ 1 

1 ＝ 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + …… 

1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + …… ＝ 1
１ ＝ 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + ……
半分+半分の半分+半分の半分の半分+半分の半分の半分の半分+…… ＝ １ 

１＝半分+半分の半分+半分の半分の半分+半分の半分の半分の半分+…… 

半分+半分の半分+半分の半分の半分+半分の半分の半分の半分+…… ＝ １ 

１＝半分+半分の半分+半分の半分の半分+半分の半分の半分の半分+…… 

だから、悲しみの半分を悲しみではないものにする。 

残った半分の悲しみの半分をほかのものにする。

さらに残った半分の半分の悲しみの半分をほかのものにする。 

これを繰り返して、悲しみを限りなくほかのものにする。 

それなのに、残ったものは、最初にあったものと同じもの、 

同じひとつの悲しみであった。

      「The Wastleless Land VI」(2011)より

In celebration of National Poetry Month 2012