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Translation and the Construction of Identity: Abstracts
Date: 12-14 August 2004
Venue: Sookmyung Women's University, Seoul, Korea
Gergana Petrova PhD Candidate in “Japanologie”,
Zurich University, Switzerland The present study is based on the author’s research
of Japanese folklore in the framework of the PhD thesis “Male characters in
Japanese fairy tales” at Zurich University. The author would like to share
her experience using folklore texts and their translation and put to
discussion various topics arising from her research so far. The study is built around examples from Japanese
folklore texts. The key topics for discussion are the role of the translator
in cultural studies (the translator’s role in introducing another culture to
the audience and making the audience understand it, the appreciation of what
must be translated – language or culture or both – and to what extent, the
uniqueness and the universality of cultures, the nationalism of
ethnographers and the internationalism of translators); translation of
folklore texts (the effect of written language on folklore studies, writing
oral literature and translating “written oral literature” with a double
remoteness from the original, visual and textual representation of culture);
cultural studies inside language studies (the need for a new wave for
language teaching based on cultural studies). Typical examples will be chosen, mainly from Japanese
folklore. The paper will give illustrations in various languages (the author
works with Japanese, Bulgarian, English, German and Russian sources) and
discuss possible practical solutions for the main problems in representing
and translating folklore and culture texts and using them in various
contexts.
Panel 6: Translation and Ethnography – Modes of Representation
There Should be a Hidden Ethnographer Inside every Translator
© IATIS 2003