André Lefevere, “Mother Courage’s Cucumbers: Text, System, and Refraction in a
Theory of Literature,” in Venuti, Lawrence, ed. The Translation Studies Reader.
London and New York: Routledge, 2000. 233-249.
Lefevere defines “refractions” as “the adaptation of a work of literature to a
difference audience, with the intention of influencing the way in which that
audience reads the work” (234-35).
“Refractions are to be found in the obvious form of translation, or in the less obvious
forms of criticism . . . , commentary, historiography (of the plot summary of famous
works cum evaluation type, I which the evaluation is unabashedly baed on the
current concept of what ‘good’ literature should be), teaching, the collection of
works in anthologies, the production of plays” (235).
“A refraction (whether it is a translation, criticism, historiography) which tries to
carry a work of literature over from one system into another, represents a
compromise between two systems and is, as such, the perfect indicator of of the
dominant constraints in both systems. The gap between the two hierarchies of
constraints explains why certain works do not ‘take,’ or enjoy at best an ambiguous
position in the system they are imported into” (237).
Neubert, Albrecht and Gregory M. Shreve. Translation as Text. Kent: Kent State UP,
1992.
“Translation is an activity characterized by displacement. The communicating
partners in translation are not temporally or physically co-present. Interaction is
still possible because the communicating partners can always project one another’s
presence. . . . Written communication, delivers in the form of texts, is generally
displaced. It is produced using a projection of the (future) reading audience. The
communicative partnership is not completed in the presence of the producer, but
later, after a time delay” (37).
“Human beings use language to reflect and communicate what they know and feel
about physical and social reality. Everything human beings say, write, listen to or
read is the result of the twin processes of cognition and communication. Cognition
cannot be separated from communication. They are unified rather than a sequence
of two independent acts. Spoken discourse and written text are not neutral vessels
fill by speakers and writers with language content. There is a complex relationship
between cognitive content and communicative even, between knowledge and
process. Discourses and texts always have communicative purpose and their
linguistic expression reflects that purpose. The translator always acts with the
interests of these twin processes in mind. Translators must account for the
cognitive content of the communication, and they must use language in that
accounting. The linguistic forms that are used must reflect the conditions governing
the interaction. The term situation refers to the contextual constraints active during
interaction. The competence of the translator is not just a knowledge of the two
language systems, but also a communicative knowledge. Communicative knowledge
is knowing how to use language in specific interactional situations (37).
“If translations are outputs of textual processes, what are the inputs? The answers
to this question are: knowledge of language, knowledge of social interaction,
knowledge of the world (and its domains), knowledge of texts, and knowledge of
translation” (53).
Daisy Fried, “Under the Influence,” review of Maureen N. McLane’s book My Poets.
New York Times Book Review, 19 Aug. 2012, p. 16.
“Learning to read difficult poems is an act of translation, effected by more reading.”
“’My Translated’ ends ‘My Robert Zimmerman is Bob Dylan.’ Does this suggest that
self-invention – the move from the private Zimmerman to the public Dylan via name
change – is a kind of translation, too? The more one pays attention here, the more
one experiences the gap between any original and its translation. The move, say,
from real life to its writing. From reading to understanding, via explaining and
experiencing. Or the translational act of discovering our own loved, liked or loathed
poets. All reading is translation. It’s how we discover our lives. Maybe it helps us
learn to misbehave.”