One more link related to choosing target-language terms to match foreign concepts in the source language, and then I’m done. I swear. Translator Marian Schwartz, in a Boston Globe interview titled “Creating translations that are faithful, not literal“:
I think we’ve become more receptive to foreign elements. Constance Garnett, whom I will defend to the end of my days, is now criticized for not being faithful to Tolstoy’s text, for setting his books in what feels like an English garden, but in my view it cannot be bad when a translation gives people access to works that they would never otherwise have read. As I was saying, though, our taste for foreignness has increased. A simple example: 50 years ago, names of Chinese characters were translated—”Peach Blossom” and the like—whereas now the preference is for the transliterated Chinese names. There is an ongoing debate among translators about “foreignizing” and “domestication,” but wherever a translator’s choice falls, today it will probably be closer to foreignizing than it would have been 50 years ago.
Turning back the clock would let me write about Prime Minister Mountain of Doves, which would be fun.
by Jason
06 Apr 2010 at 15:24
It would be fun to call the PM “Mr. Mountain of Doves” … but it would kind of ruin the image of doves, no?
Personally, the “foreignization” of translations is, in my mind, a good thing. It opens people’s minds to possibilities beyond our current understandings.
by Joe
07 Apr 2010 at 14:07
When you consider names from European cultures, however, they are more “foreign” when left as they are. Contrast the romantic-sounding “Giuseppe Verdi” when plain old “Joseph Green.” Doesn’t have quite the same ring, somehow.