books on translation wanted
Wayne Citrin
aspects of translation, particularly the problem of conveying the
author's style in a translation. Any recommendations? Thanks.
Wayne Citrin
(ucbvax!citrin)
Dan Rose
>I'm looking for a good book or books on the philosophical and/or literary
>aspects of translation, particularly the problem of conveying the
>author's style in a translation. Any recommendations? Thanks.
Douglas R. Hofstadter (of _Godel,_Escher,_Bach_ fame) has talked
and written about this. In GEB, he includes translations of
Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" into French and German and discusses
this. (How do you translate a "nonsense" poem into another
language, while preserving the connotations of the words?)
Later, he has talked about the difficulties in translating GEB
into other languages. In one instance, translators botched
an acrostic dialogue -- the first letters of each line were
supposed to spell something, but the translator missed this.
I believe he mentions some of this in his collection of Scientific
American essays, _Metamagical_Themas_. He also is interested
in such things as translations between languages which have no
distinction between gender and those which do, etc.
--
Dan (not Broadway Danny) Rose
rose@UCSD
Cary Timar
>in such things as translations between languages which have no
>distinction between gender and those which do, etc.
How do we count English? According to anglophones, English does not
distinguish genders, unlike French, German, Spanish, Latin, and all
those other languages they teach in school. On the other hand, immigrants
whose native languages do not distinguish "he" from "she" (e.g. Hungarian)
would probably say that English does have gender distinctions (this is why
some say "I met John. She is ...") It is likely that some language has
weaker gender distinctions than Hungarian (which distinguishes "he/she"
from "it"). Possibly, there are also languages with more complex gender
rules (not the same as more genders) than Latin or German.
I don't think that gender distinctions are a yes/no characteristic of
languages. The question is when and how a language distinguishes gender.
--
-- Cary Timar
Andy Behrens
who is interested in the art of translation. Of all the books I own,
it is the one I most enjoy rereading.
Proetz has found translations of (or, in a few cases, has himself
translated) passages from Chaucer, Blake, Coleridge, e.e. cummings, and
a few dozen others. The translations are followed by short essays.
Sometimes Proetz talks about the merits and faults of the translation
and points out details that especially delighted him; sometimes he
discusses the history of the work; sometimes he just lets the
translation stand on its own merit.
I had a hard time choosing a single passage that would give the flavor
of the book. The translation of Pig and Pepper (from Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland) is close to perfect, puns and all, and it's a shame to
leave out
In Xanadu liess Kubla Khan
Der Lust ger"aumigen Dom erstehen,
Wo Alph, das heilige Wasser, rann
Durch H"ohlen ohne Mass und Plan
Zu sonnenloser See....
Maybe you should just buy the book and read it yourself.
The Astonishment of Words:
An Experiment in the Comparison of Languages
Victor Proetz
University of Texas Press (Austin, 1971)
ISBN 0-292-70116-0
Andy Behrens
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Rob Bernardo
>I don't think that gender distinctions are a yes/no characteristic of
>languages. The question is when and how a language distinguishes gender.
We must keep in mind that "gender" can be used in two different senses.
1. In one sense, gender is a property of the object being referred
to. With the exception of referring to ships and boats as "she", this is
the only gender English has. "he/him/his" is used for male animate objects,
and "she/her/hers" is used for female animate objects. This means that
gender is not really a grammatical feature of the language, but only shows
up in the *semantics* of third person pronouns (at least only there in
English). This is a semantic issue just as much as having separate words
for female parent and male parent, or having separate words for people
of different ages (baby, child, boy/girl, man/woman).
2. In the other sense, gender is a property of a (noun) *word*, and
not *necessarily* reflecting the biological gender of the referent.
A great example occurs in Russian, where there is the *grammatically*
"feminine" word sobaka meaning "hound" and the *grammatically* "masculine"
word pyos meaning "dog". One is called "feminine" because it takes
the set of endings that other "feminine" nouns take, and because
a adjective that modifies this nound must have the feminine endings.
The other is called masculine for the opposite reason.
--
Rob Bernardo, San Ramon, CA "Whenever I get the urge to work,
(415) 823-2417 I log in and read the netnews
{pyramid|ihnp4|dual}!ptsfa!rob until the feeling passes."
Dan Rose
>>in such things as translations between languages which have no
>>distinction between gender and those which do, etc.
>
>How do we count English? According to anglophones, English does not
>distinguish genders, unlike French, German, Spanish, Latin, and all
>those other languages they teach in school. On the other hand, immigrants
>whose native languages do not distinguish "he" from "she" (e.g. Hungarian)
>would probably say that English does have gender distinctions (this is why
>some say "I met John. She is ...") It is likely that some language has
>weaker gender distinctions than Hungarian (which distinguishes "he/she"
>from "it"). Possibly, there are also languages with more complex gender
>rules (not the same as more genders) than Latin or German.
There are lots of issues; I meant to include them all. For example,
in French there is no separate word for "siblings" -- you just use the
same word as "brothers"; similarly in Spanish for "parents", you use
"fathers". [Of course, in context a Spanish speaker wouldn't translate
it that way.]
Native German speakers I've known insist on calling my female dogs
"he," since the word "Hund" (sp?) is masculine.
I think Hofstadter mentions some language where there is no distinction
between the pronouns "he" and "she" (as if we used "it" in every case),
and speculates on whether this would lead to less sexism in writing.
I am reminded of a friend who took a Psychology class in which the authors
of their text wrote "The subject did such-and-such. Her response was
as follows." One student actually complained that the authors were
changing gender in mid-sentence -- obviously "the subject" refers to
a male. :-)
m.juliar
Try "On Translation" edited by Reuben A. Brower, Harvard U. Press, 1959.
It has essays by 17 translators, including Achilles Fang (I just had to
mention that name). It is probably a good collection because Vladimir
Nabokov's essay about his translation of Alexandr Pushkin's (sic)
"Eugene Onegin" is included. Its title is "The Servile Path."
I think the book is out of print. It should be in good libraries or
available through second-hand bookstores.
Michael Juliar
deb...@megaron.uucp
> between the pronouns "he" and "she" (as if we used "it" in every case),
> and speculates on whether this would lead to less sexism in writing.
I can name several (Asian) Indian languages -- among them Bengali, my
mother tongue -- which have only one third person pronoun, roughly
equivalent to "it".
This may or may not lead to less sexism in *writing*, it certainly
doesn't change the fact that these societies are extremely sexist.
This makes me feel that the whole "Sexism in Language" debate is
pretty meaningless (yes, Sapir-Whorf notwithstanding).
---
Saumya Debray
University of Arizona, Tucson
deb...@arizona.edu
{allegra, cmcl2, ihnp4}!arizona!debray
k...@hcrvax.uucp
>I can name several (Asian) Indian languages -- among them Bengali, my
>mother tongue -- which have only one third person pronoun, roughly
>equivalent to "it".
>
>This may or may not lead to less sexism in *writing*, it certainly
>doesn't change the fact that these societies are extremely sexist.
>This makes me feel that the whole "Sexism in Language" debate is
>pretty meaningless (yes, Sapir-Whorf notwithstanding).
This is the logical equivalent of: "I didn't go swimming in January,
and I caught pneumonia anyway. I think that all this nonsense about
hypothermia and pneumonia is pretty meaningless." --:)
What it boils down to is: "Every little bit counts." (Even the silly
things.)
As a sort of illustration, consider the term Mrs. In Dryden's day,
any lady worthy of respect (through age, social standing, talent)
was referred to as Mrs., and Miss was almost a diminutive. See the
(dreadful) poem "To the Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew, Poetess".
Now, the only way to gain this term of respect is to get married.
In the same vein, don't try calling a 60 year old German spinster Fraulein.
Ken
--
- Ken Scott
[decvax,ihnp4]!utzoo!hcr!ken
For, I said to myself, what is the universe? Big.
And what am I? Little. I therefore might as well be
at home, where my wife loves me.
- Henderson, The Rain King
Andre Guirard
>equivalent to "it".
>
>This may or may not lead to less sexism in *writing*, it certainly
>doesn't change the fact that these societies are extremely sexist.
>This makes me feel that the whole "Sexism in Language" debate is
>pretty meaningless (yes, Sapir-Whorf notwithstanding).
You apparently intend to provide a counter-example, but this is not a
counter-example to the statement that "sexist language can cause sexist
attitudes." I don't think I've heard anybody claim that sexist
language is the _sole_ cause of sexist attitudes.
It's as if I said, "The rabbits are getting into my garden and eating
my lettuce," and you replied, "No, it can't be rabbits, because there
are no rabbits where I live and still something eats the lettuce in my
garden."
--
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Stevan Harnad
> In article <12...@megaron.UUCP> deb...@megaron.UUCP writes:
> > Bengali [and other languages] have only one third person pronoun, roughly
> >extremely sexist.
> [This is no] counter-example to the statement that "sexist language can cause
> sexist attitudes." I don't think I've heard anybody claim that sexist
> language is the _sole_ cause of sexist attitudes.
> It's as if I said, "The rabbits are getting into my garden and eating
> my lettuce," and you replied, "No, it can't be rabbits, because there
> are no rabbits where I live and still something eats the lettuce in my garden"
Not quite. I would say that the burden of proof for the thesis that
linguistic gender plays a causal role in sex discrimination includes
sorting out the causal and the noncausal correlations. The negative
evidence from Bengali (and let me add Hungarian to that list)
definitely counts against this thesis.
[I have a not-yet-published paper on this, entitled: "The Neutering of the
English Tongue: Reflections on Current Trends in `Nonsexist' Usage." Limited
preprints are available on request, but you have to supply the postage.]
--
Stevan Harnad (609) - 921 7771
{allegra, bellcore, seismo, rutgers, packard} !princeton!mind!harnad
harnad%mi...@princeton.csnet
Michael Ellis such as he is
>>> Bengali [and other languages] have only one third person pronoun,
>>> roughly equivalent to "it". [This] doesn't change the fact that
>>> these societies are extremely sexist.
Saumya, I answered your absurd argument several times a few years
ago and you never answered my arguments, therefore I conclude that
you have shit-for-brains...
>> [This is no] counter-example to the statement that "sexist language
>> can cause sexist attitudes." I don't think I've heard anybody
>> claim that sexist language is the _sole_ cause of sexist attitudes.
>> It's as if I said, "The rabbits are getting into my garden and
>> eating my lettuce," and you replied, "No, it can't be rabbits,
>> because there are no rabbits where I live and still something eats
>> the lettuce in my garden"
> Not quite. I would say that the burden of proof for the thesis that
> linguistic gender plays a causal role in sex discrimination includes
> sorting out the causal and the noncausal correlations. The negative
> evidence from Bengali (and let me add Hungarian to that list)
> definitely counts against this thesis.
This is all horse manure. The thesis that "linguistic gender plays
a causal role is sex discrimination" is a strawperson that Lackeys
for the Patriachy foam at the mouth over in order to avoid
listening to the real issue at hand.
For one thing, I have not heard ANY intelligent feminist thought
for years, whether by moderates or by extremist lesbian
separatists (who are actually lovely people, BTW), aimed towards
removing gender distinctions (don't waste your time telling me what
"gender" means, I already know and I don't care) from our
language. When I use "He/him/his" I'm talking about men and when I
use "she/her" I'm talking about women. And such language is
perfectly OK by even the most radical Berkeley feminist I have yet
encountered. If you think that's what the issue is about, you are
attacking a dead relic of the 60's, a "strawperson" -- you are
blowing your hot air out the wrong orifice.
The real problem is a very simple and practical issue, namely,
what to say when the sex of the person in question is unknown, and
most importantly, in formerly sex-defined contexts where one wishes to
let it be known that no particular sex is intended, such as in a
job description:
Paperboy wanted to handle Fecal Heights and surrounding
vicinity. He must be prompt, courteous, and trustworthy.
Cosmic Defrangibrators Corporation needs a Salesman with
mumble mumble.. Applicant must demonstrate his knowledge ..
...or in casual conversation:
Sam: Will you please get tell Mr. Finklestein's secretrary to
get her ass up here?
Joe: Err.. I AM Mr. Finklestein's secretary!
Now I am perfectly aware that, with thought, the language in
these contexts can be carefully reworded, so don't waste your foul
breath telling me so. This is in fact the direction that job ads
have been taking, although even today one still encounters job ads
with "he" and "-man" with depressing frequency. But even THAT'S
OK, since such language is a dead giveaway that the company in
question is run by male chauvinist pricks who wouldn't hire any
woman, let alone a feminist, for the position in question.
So there's still the centuries old problem of casual speech, and
it IS centuries old as anyone who refers to the OED can easily verify
by checking under the entry for "he". The natural solution is now
and always was to use "they/them/their" whenever an anaphoric
reference needed to positively AMBIGUATE gender. ("Who was that?"
"I don't know, but THEY sure as hell left THEIR crap all over
the place"). Personally, I am convinced that this usage would have
become standard had it not been for the influence of latin-crazed
normative grammarians shoving their artificial latinate
constructions upon the English language. Anyway, "he" worked pretty
well back then, and one reason it worked was because there were
very few important contexts centuries ago where gender-ambiguity
was truly required -- people who fought fires were always men,
people who took care of babies were always women, and it really
didn't matter whether you misread maleness into generic "he" or
not because the only people whose opinions and actions really
counted were the men anyway. This is not to say that the so-called
"sexism in the language" CAUSES "sexism in society", nor is it to
say the converse (my personal belief that it has gone both ways is
simply irrelevant to the issue at hand). If it makes you feel
better, the truth is that by sheer accident we have no generic 3rd
person singular anaphoric pronoun, and we made do with "he"
instead (which worked pretty well when our society was overtly
sexist). But now that our society is shedding its sexism, I, and
many others, are not just convinced that we need something better,
we are openly employing the natural solution -- they/them/their.
The fact is that a very large number of us who were unimpressed by
what they fed us in grammar school still feel there was something
wrong with generic "he" -- I remember thinking it was funny, awkward, and
confusing as far back as I can remember, which was L O N G
before the controversy was raised by feminists in the sixties and
seventies. The problem with generic "he" is that it does say what
I want it to say. "he" refers to those who go to the men's room,
who wear men's (or boy's) clothing, and have penises. To pretend
otherwise is to risk being misunderstood, or worse, to be
understood an authoritarian minded person who would hide their
antagonism towards the women's rights behind flimsy and obsolete
19th century normative grammar.
Why do we "need" this change? We don't -- the change already happened
centuries ago -- and to any prescriptive grammarian who might tell
me my language is incorrect, they can go shove where the sun
doesn't shine...
> [I have a not-yet-published paper on this, entitled: "The Neutering
> of the English Tongue: Reflections on Current Trends in `Nonsexist'
> Usage." Limited preprints are available on request, but you have to
> supply the postage.]
Utter crap. If you had published it 15 years ago, maybe somebody
would have cared.
-michael
Stevan Harnad
"rath...@brahms.berkeley.EDU (Really Michael Ellis)
Organization: 2-3:30PM, tuesdays and thursdays"
writes:
> you have shit-for-brains... This is all horse manure...
> you are blowing your hot air out the wrong orifice...
> Paperboy wanted to handle Fecal Heights and surrounding vicinity...
> get her ass up here... don't waste your foul breath telling me...
> male chauvinist pricks... but THEY sure as hell left THEIR crap all
> over the place... go shove where the sun doesn't shine... Utter crap.
I find it astonishing that such an obviously disturbed individual has
access to an account at brahms.berkeley.EDU, let alone the news net.
If the net is to evolve into the respectable forum many of us hope it
will become, there must be a way of blocking this sort of misuse. Not
all groups can be moderated, but the unmoderated ones should still
ensure that serious consequences overtake this sort of abuse. A copy of this
will be sent to the system administrator at berkeley.EDU. I hope
other net news users will also bring some collective pressure to bear
on this sort of behavior. (Apologies to any of the above-named if
someone else has been clandestinely misusing their names and accounts,
but then they will no doubt want to be alerted so they can change passwords.)