amp creative interpretation a new facet in Interpreting Studies A presentation by Marc Orlando Monash University AALITRA Melbourne 10 March 2015 The Andrei ID: 321179
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Slide1
Literary & creative interpretation
a new facet in Interpreting Studies?
A presentation by Marc Orlando (
Monash
University
)
AALITRA
,
Melbourne, 10
March 2015Slide2
The Andrei Makine case…Slide3
Taxonomy of Interpreting: Conference Interpreting (international meetings)Liaison Interpreting
(delegations, politicians, artists, businessmen...)Court InterpretingCommunity Interpreting (healthcare, education
, banking, legal services
...)
Media Interpreting (TV, press conferences…)
= a diversity of communicative situations, as well as of modalities and environmentsSlide4
Is it relevant to compartiment situations in predictable drawers, or
should interpreting be seen as “a socio-communicative practice [and] a unified concept”(Pöchhacker
, 2002) ?Slide5
Taxonomy of TranslationLegal, business, medical translationMedia translationLiterary
translation (a broad sense)Slide6
Can we speak of
“literary interpreting” / “literary interpretations”?Slide7
Would it be a different
exercise?Would the interpreter of such ‘texts’
be
expected
to master specific literary skills?
Orlando (2010),
Interpreting
Eloquence:
When
words
matter as much as ideasSlide8
The Art of TranslationSlide9
“Literary translators have to have a broad palette of literary skills as they have to adapt their linguistic skills to the work of others”
(Furlan, 2007)Slide10
Translation not only plays its important traditional role as the means that allows us access to literature originally written in one of the countless languages we cannot read, but it also represents a concrete literary presence with the crucial capacity to ease and make more meaningful our relationships to those with whom we may not have had a connection before.
Translation always helps us to know, to see from a different angle, to attribute new value to what once may have been unfamiliar. As nations and as individuals, we have a critical need for that kind of understanding and insight. The alternative is unthinkable.Grossman (2010)Slide11
Translation is no longer considered as a mere linguistic activity
Translation is the transfer into another reality of a text and its voice, its style, its function, its effects, etc.For each translation, fidelity to the ST and the author’s intentions is unquestionable, but a certain level of
intervention
always exists along a chosen
strategy
It bridges gaps between different cultures and can be seen as a form of mediation facilitating the global exchange of cultural production.
A translation is “a world of alternatives” (Langton, 2008)
It is rarely a mere transfer with a single function, and the translator is not only a neutral ‘mediating tool’: the translator as agent
If done under reasonable conditions and with the support of the author, a translation tends to ‘improve’ the source textSlide12
A translation is “a limit, a threshold which generates a new meaning”, compatible with the target cultural reality. (Derrida, 2001)
Derrida called this limit “the bar of translation”, a bar functioning both as a barrier and a threshold, “at once blocking and generating meaning, taking away from and adding to the original text”.
This notion tends to present translation as an act of communication where meaning is always lost and generated.
= the product of the translational process is a new text, independent and unique in its potential multiplicity
. Translation is an act of re-creation…Slide13
The Translator’s role(s)
A bilingual expert: a linguistic dutyA (bi)cultural expert: a sound knowledge of the cultures involvedA creative writer: “Translation is a craft which requires art and an art which requires craft”. Literary translators have to have a broad palette of literary skills as they have to adapt their linguistic skills to the work of others”
(
Furlan
)
A insightful reader: “Translation is the most intimate act of reading” (Spivak)A knowledgeable linguist:
a varied background in-depth knowledge
An efficient and skilled investigator:
an ability to efficiently acquire
ad-hoc
information
A
practisearcher
: a sound knowledge of Translation Studies as a field of researchSlide14
A translation must be as literal as possible but as free as necessarySlide15
The Art of InterpretationSlide16
Interpretinga form of translational activity in which the source-language text is presented only once and thus cannot be reviewed or replayed,
the target text is produced under time pressure, with limited opportunity for correction and revision(Kade, 1968)Slide17
Aural & analysis skills (DA)Good memory capacity
Note-taking skills“Deverbalisation” skills (ideas matter)Oral production skills (registers), paraphrasing, summarizing)Public speaking/acting skillsMulti-tasking / Stress management skills
Research skills
…Slide18
The Interpretive chainA consensus seems to exist among researchers on what the interpretive chain is :
perception of the message;comprehension of the speech/text (identification of words, meaning of the words in the sentence, and then sense in the context);Deverbalization : the “immediate and deliberate discarding of the wording and retention of the mental representation of the message” (
Seleskovitch
, 1975); words and sentences that gave birth to sense are forgotten, while
sense
remains present without any linguistic supportreformulation (creation);rephrasing/re expression
(free and natural).Slide19
An interpretation/translation is not a linguistic translation but rather a search for a sense equivalence in the target language.The deverbalisation of the speech is the phase when
the interpreter forgets the form to get access to the intended sense, thanks to various cognitive complements.Words > Meaning > SenseSlide20
But, is the interpretive act - the quest
for sense – always a relevant concept in the act of interpreting ?Different
roles
of the
interpreter
/ different perceptions, in different communicative situationsDifferent types of speeches to be
interpretedSlide21
What is an interpreter?A tap: ‘a language converter’A conduit: ‘
an invisible message converter’A communication facilitator: ‘a message clarifier’A cultural mediator: ‘a cultural clarifier’ “people who speak different languages live in different worlds, not the same world with different labels” (Sapir, 1928)An advocate
A servant
A service provider (admin help, escort, guide…)Slide22
Text types / speeches typesThree forms of speeches exist:
Descriptive, dialectic, affectiveThree forms of interpretations:An explanation (the content prevails),
An argumentation (both content and form matter),
An eloquence exercise (form is essential)Slide23
Translation and deverbalisation?It is more difficult for the translator as the ST does not disappear, and therefore the graphic signs remain and call for proper linguistic correspondences in the TL, short-circuiting the search for appropriate equivalences of sense
.Even if deverbalisation requires an effort on the part of the translator, it is present in the translator’s awareness of what an author means in a given passageSlide24
“In the first part of the year (1880), Freud was able to cope with the boredom (of military service) by devoting himself to translating a book by John Stuart Mill, the first of five large books he translated. It was a congenial work, since he was specially gifted as a translator. Instead of laboriously transcribing from the foreign language, idioms and all, he would read a passage, close the book and consider how a German writer would have clothed the same thoughts
― a method not very common among translators. His translating work was both brilliant and rapid.”(Choi, 2004)Slide25
“The literature of the past 30 years seems to reflect a consensus, at least on translation of informational texts (as opposed to literary texts), in favor of a meaning and intention-oriented translation strategy, as opposed to a strategy based on formal equivalence: it is felt that translation suffers when it is constructed on linguistic correspondences, and serves its purpose better when the form of the source text is used to understand it and is then
honorably discharged while the reformulation process proceeds on the basis of an autonomous mental representation of its meaning (informational, emotional, social, intentional, etc.).” (Gile
, 2003)Slide26
Can we speak of “literary interpreting” / “literary interpretations”?Slide27
Interpreting for Andrei Makine at the 2007 Auckland Writers
FestivalSlide28
Others’ viewsSlide29
I’ve been working
as an interpreter for literature, theater
and
the arts for many
years
. I
love
the
challenge and - since
I
have
met
many
writers
and
filmmakers
,
photographers
and
painters
in
my
career
–
the
diversity
of
interpreting
modes
(
or
variations
,
including
the
psychological
versality) you’re required to adopt in this particular setting. And it’s almost always consec, as you point out. Slide30
Some writers are eloquent,
some are shy, some are
vain
,
some
are modest, some
are
drunk
(
yes
,
it
happens, and it
does
not
enhance
their
intelligibility
),
some
hosts
know
how
to
ask
questions
,
some
don’t
seem
to
know
what
they
want
to
know
.
Sometimes
the audience loves you (the interpreter) too, sometimes the artist/writer does not want the audience to love
anybody except the artist/writer, yet they depend on you (the interpreter) to get the message accross …Slide31
Peter Mead (2012), ‘Consecutive Interpreting at a Literature Festival’
Interpreting in such settings can by no means be
readily
identified
with Orlando’s description of “literary interpreting”, [even if this description] can be appreciated as a contribution to the growing awareness of working modalities and environments which do not fall neatly into the conventional categories of interpreting.
‘
even if comments focusing on features of literary language do not occur very often in my experience of interpreting for authors,
metalinguistic
comment is quite frequent. […] This obviously does require the level of attention to words and nuances of which Marc Orlando speaks’
…my perception is that the “literary interpreting” genre is on the increaseSlide32
A few examples…