The importance of intertextuality in the translation process is a subject under discussion by onl... more The importance of intertextuality in the translation process is a subject under discussion by only a seeming handful of translation theorists. In this partial translation of Aichi Prefectural Government’s guidebook Aichi Kankyō Kankō Gaidobukku, I attempt to show how intertextuality plays a vital role in cross-cultural communication events that are target culture-oriented. Tourist texts are a particularly useful text type because their universally informative and persuasive function inherently demands a target-culture orientation in translated tourist texts. Through the functionalist theories of skopos and translator mediation, I have shown that the process of ‘rewriting’ in the translation of tourist texts allows translators to adapt the source text to target readers’ expectations of the tourist text genre’s conventions, which have been established in the target culture through intertextuality. This paper contributes to the discussion of intertextuality in the arena of translation studies, and impact of intertextuality on translation strategies for target culture-oriented texts. On the basis of intertextuality and the functionalist approach, I argue that the process of rewriting and the careful analysis of target language parallel texts are useful strategies in approaching the translation of tourist texts.
There are numerous existing translation theories that attempt to break down and define a ‘success... more There are numerous existing translation theories that attempt to break down and define a ‘successful’ translation, but the number of structured translation criticisms that employ these theories in the analysis of translations is limited. Theories such as Hans Vermeer’s skopostheorie contain the potential to serve as measuring sticks of translated texts. This translation criticism puts Vermeer’s functionalist theory to practice in an analysis of two translations of Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s 1916 short story Hana (“The Nose”). The two translations are each targeted towards different readerships; Jay Rubin’s translation focuses on furthering Akutagawa as a literary figure, whereas Giles Murray’s translation is specifically structured and translated for advanced students of Japanese language. As a result of their disparate purposes, or skopos, their resulting translated texts are divergent despite their shared source text. An analysis of the selected aspects 1) unmarked speech forms and 2) variations on names of Buddhist deities within the two texts suggests Vermeer’s theory is a useful analytical tool for understanding the unique nature of each translated text and the role each text plays in its respective target culture contexts. In providing a structured critical analysis of these two translations, anchored by Vermeer’s Skopos translation theory, this paper contributes to the development of translation criticisms in the study of translation theories and their potential impact on academic disciplines that utilize translated texts.
The number of studies that have examined audiovisual translation outside of the European language... more The number of studies that have examined audiovisual translation outside of the European languages is limited, and research on genre-specific audiovisual translation is even scarcer. Case studies on the subtitles of a specific genre can potentially reveal more about the influence of genre on the effectiveness of subtitling in transferring verbal and nonverbal information. This paper analyzes the Japanese subtitles from a condensed version of the 2009 documentary The Cove, which criticizes the Japanese fisheries of Taiji for needlessly slaughtering dolphins. The documentary’s use of interviews by sources ranging from scientists to animal rights activists creates challenges for the subtitler, who must deal with a diversity of registers while still retaining enough meaning in the space-restricted Japanese subtitles to evoke the emotional reactions in Japanese audiences that the documentary intended for its original Western audience. This study suggests that the function of the documentary genre as both informative and persuasive necessitates subtitles that do not omit or alter the meaning of the original speech acts in order to stay true to the film’s original purpose. In providing a close analysis of the Japanese subtitles for the culturally and politically problematic documentary genre, this paper contributes to the growing audiovisual translation field in respects to the impact of film genre on the subtitling techniques chosen by translators and the effectiveness of subtitles.
The importance of intertextuality in the translation process is a subject under discussion by onl... more The importance of intertextuality in the translation process is a subject under discussion by only a seeming handful of translation theorists. In this partial translation of Aichi Prefectural Government’s guidebook Aichi Kankyō Kankō Gaidobukku, I attempt to show how intertextuality plays a vital role in cross-cultural communication events that are target culture-oriented. Tourist texts are a particularly useful text type because their universally informative and persuasive function inherently demands a target-culture orientation in translated tourist texts. Through the functionalist theories of skopos and translator mediation, I have shown that the process of ‘rewriting’ in the translation of tourist texts allows translators to adapt the source text to target readers’ expectations of the tourist text genre’s conventions, which have been established in the target culture through intertextuality. This paper contributes to the discussion of intertextuality in the arena of translation studies, and impact of intertextuality on translation strategies for target culture-oriented texts. On the basis of intertextuality and the functionalist approach, I argue that the process of rewriting and the careful analysis of target language parallel texts are useful strategies in approaching the translation of tourist texts.
There are numerous existing translation theories that attempt to break down and define a ‘success... more There are numerous existing translation theories that attempt to break down and define a ‘successful’ translation, but the number of structured translation criticisms that employ these theories in the analysis of translations is limited. Theories such as Hans Vermeer’s skopostheorie contain the potential to serve as measuring sticks of translated texts. This translation criticism puts Vermeer’s functionalist theory to practice in an analysis of two translations of Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s 1916 short story Hana (“The Nose”). The two translations are each targeted towards different readerships; Jay Rubin’s translation focuses on furthering Akutagawa as a literary figure, whereas Giles Murray’s translation is specifically structured and translated for advanced students of Japanese language. As a result of their disparate purposes, or skopos, their resulting translated texts are divergent despite their shared source text. An analysis of the selected aspects 1) unmarked speech forms and 2) variations on names of Buddhist deities within the two texts suggests Vermeer’s theory is a useful analytical tool for understanding the unique nature of each translated text and the role each text plays in its respective target culture contexts. In providing a structured critical analysis of these two translations, anchored by Vermeer’s Skopos translation theory, this paper contributes to the development of translation criticisms in the study of translation theories and their potential impact on academic disciplines that utilize translated texts.
The number of studies that have examined audiovisual translation outside of the European language... more The number of studies that have examined audiovisual translation outside of the European languages is limited, and research on genre-specific audiovisual translation is even scarcer. Case studies on the subtitles of a specific genre can potentially reveal more about the influence of genre on the effectiveness of subtitling in transferring verbal and nonverbal information. This paper analyzes the Japanese subtitles from a condensed version of the 2009 documentary The Cove, which criticizes the Japanese fisheries of Taiji for needlessly slaughtering dolphins. The documentary’s use of interviews by sources ranging from scientists to animal rights activists creates challenges for the subtitler, who must deal with a diversity of registers while still retaining enough meaning in the space-restricted Japanese subtitles to evoke the emotional reactions in Japanese audiences that the documentary intended for its original Western audience. This study suggests that the function of the documentary genre as both informative and persuasive necessitates subtitles that do not omit or alter the meaning of the original speech acts in order to stay true to the film’s original purpose. In providing a close analysis of the Japanese subtitles for the culturally and politically problematic documentary genre, this paper contributes to the growing audiovisual translation field in respects to the impact of film genre on the subtitling techniques chosen by translators and the effectiveness of subtitles.
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Papers by Jamie Tokuno
Mutual Images Journal by Jamie Tokuno
Source: Mutual Images [Online], Issue 3, Autumn, 2017.
ISSN: 2496-1868.
Doi: https://doi.org/10.32926/3
Freely available at our Open Access Journal : http://www.mutualimages-journal.org
Source: Mutual Images [Online], Issue 3, Autumn, 2017.
ISSN: 2496-1868.
Doi: https://doi.org/10.32926/3
Freely available at our Open Access Journal : http://www.mutualimages-journal.org