On Self-translation. An Exploration in Self-translators’ Teloi and Strategies

Simona Anselmi – Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

On Self-translation
An Exploration in Self-translators’ Teloi and Strategies

Collana: «Traduzione. Testi e Strumenti»
14,5 x 21 cm – pagg. 100 – 2012 – € 23,50
ISBN 978-88-7916-611-9

DISPONIBILE ANCHE IN FORMATO EPUB
ISBN 978-88-5513-035-6 - Per acquistare la versione digitale epub CLICCARE QUI

Per leggere l'estratto

View sample pages

SOMMARIO: Introduction — 1. Self-Translation Studies: 1.1. The state of the art in self-translation studies – 1.2. (Self-)translation between creativity and constraints – 1.3. The “cultural turn” in self-translation studies — 2. Self-Translators’ Teloi: 2.1. Self-translator studies – 2.2. Authors self-translating for editorial reasons – 2.3. Authors self-translating for poetic reasons – 2.4. Authors self-translating for ideological reasons – 2.5. Authors self-translating for economic or commercial reasons — 3. Self-Translation Methods And Strategies: 3.1. (Self-)translation between foreignisation and domestication – 3.2. Editorial self-translations – 3.3. Poetic self-translations – 3.4. Ideological self-translations — Concluding remarks — References.

The book explores aspects of self-translation, an all but exceptional phenomenon which has been practised, albeit on the quiet, for nearly two thousand years and has recently grown exponentially due to the increasing internationalisation of English and the growing multilingualism of modern societies. Starting from the premise that self-translation is first and foremost a translational act, i.e. a form of rewriting subject to a number of constraints, the book utilises the most valuable methods and findings of translation studies to account for the variety of reasons underlying self-translation processes and the diversity of strategies used by self-translators. The cases studied, from Kundera to Ngugi, and addressing writers like Beckett, Huston, Tagore, Brink, Krog and many others, show that the translation methods employed by self-translators vary considerably depending on their teloi. Nonetheless, most self-translations display domesticating tendencies similar to those observed in allograph translations, which confirms the view that self-translators, just like normal translators, are never free from the linguistic and cultural constraints imposed by the recontextualising of their texts in a new language. Most interestingly, the study brings to light certain recurring features, e.g. a tendency of author-translators to revise their original during the self-translation process or after completing it, which make self-translators privileged authors who can revise their texts in the light of the insights gained while translating.

Simona Anselmi is a Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at the Catholic University of Piacenza. Her research interests include translation studies, English as a lingua franca and multilingualism. Her most recent publications: ‘The editing of non-native texts and translation: evidence from the EuroCom corpus’ (2011) and ‘Translating and renarrating multilingual texts: the extreme case of Finnegans Wake’ (with Margherita Ulrych, 2011).

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L- M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - Z