ALLUSION QUEST FOR TRANSLATORS: TO TRANSLATE OR NOT TO TRANSLATE

Research purpose. The research aims at identifying and revealing the tendencies of translating allusions from English (as the source language) into Lithuanian (as the target language) in the texts of The Economist and their correspondences in the magazine IQ. Methodological approach. The paper suggests the theoretical background of the concept of allusion and the main strategies of its translation. The practical analysis is based on 54 examples found in the 28 articles of the source language with their corresponding translations into the target language. The descriptive contrastive linguistic method has been applied for processing the data selected. Findings. The analysis of the cases of allusion transference reveals the fact that the most common allusion translation strategies from the source language into the target one involves the direct translation and the direct translation with minimum changes complying with the rules of the Lithuanian language system, which allow a translator to remain faithful to the source text and convey the initial intention to well-educated and literate audiences. The ways of translation by adding extra allusive guidance and translator’s notes, using a more familiar substitution, or eliminating the allusion in the target language have been fewer in number, but with a skilful application accommodate the needs of the source language audiences.   Value and practical implications. The texts of contemporary mass media demonstrate the presence of a variety of historical, religious, cultural, and literary references that usually pose a real challenge to a translator intending to convey the author’s original intention and, at the same time, make the message comprehensible for the target readership. A well-chosen strategy for allusion translation in the texts of mass media can attract larger audiences and help to avoid confusion and misunderstanding

The zone of "becoming": game, text and technicity in videogame narratives

Videogames have emerged as arguably the most prominent form of entertainment in recent years. Their versatility has made them key contributory factors in social, literary, cultural and philosophical discourse; however, critics also tend to see videogames as posing a threat to established cultural parameters. This thesis argues that videogames are firmly grounded in older media and they are important for the development of the notions of textuality, technicity and identity that literary and cultural theories have been debating in recent years. As its point of departure, the thesis takes the contested role of videogames as storytelling media. Challenging the opposition between games and narratives that is posited in earlier research, the framework of the Derridean concept of supplementarity has been adopted to illustrate how the ludic and the narrative inform each other's core, and yet retain their media-specific identities. It is also vital to consider how the technicity and narrative of games inform their perception as texts. Videogames provide a direct illustration of this but they develop on similar principles in earlier media instead of doing something entirely 'new'. The multitelic structure of videogames tends to be looked upon as symptomatic of novelty; in reality, however, they illustrate more clearly the inherent nature of telos in all narrative media

Video Game Art Reader

In computing, overclocking refers to the common practice of increasing the clock rate of a computer to exceed that certified by the manufacturer. The concept is seductive but overclocking may destroy your motherboard or system memory, even irreparably corrupt the hard drive. Volume 4 of the Video Game Art Reader (VGAR) proposes overclocking as a metaphor for how games are produced and experienced today, and the temporal compressions and expansions of the many historical lineages that have shaped game art and culture. Contributors reflect on the many ways in which overclocking can be read as a means of oppression but also a strategy to raise awareness of how inequities have shaped video games

Typing the Dancing Signifier: Jim Andrews' (Vis)Poetics

This study focuses on the work of Jim Andrews, whose electronic poems take advantage of a variety of media, authoring programs, programming languages, and file formats to create poetic experiences worthy of study. Much can be learned about electronic textuality and poetry by following the trajectory of a poet and programmer whose fascination with language in programmable media leads him to distinctive poetic explorations and collaborations. This study offers a detailed exploration of Andrews' poetry, motivations, inspirations, and poetics, while telling a piece of the story of the rise of electronic poetry from the mid 1980s until the present. Electronic poetry can be defined as first generation electronic objects that can only be read with a computer--they cannot be printed out nor read aloud without negating that which makes them "native" to the digital environment in which they were created, exist, and are experienced in. If translated to different media, they would lose the extra-textual elements that I describe in this study as behavior. These "behaviors" electronic texts exhibit are programmed instructions that cause the text to be still, move, react to user input, change, act on a schedule, or include a sound component. The conversation between the growing capabilities of computers and networks and Andrews' poetry is the most extensive part of the study, examining three areas in which he develops his poetry: visual poetry (from static to kinetic), sound poetry (from static to responsive), and code poetry (from objects to applications). In addition to being a literary biography, the close readings of Andrews' poems are media-specific analyses that demonstrate how the software and programming languages used shape the creative and production performances in significant ways. This study makes available new materials for those interested in the textual materiality of Andrews' videogame poem, Arteroids, by publishing the Arteroids Development Folder--a collection of source files, drafts, and old versions of the poem. This collection is of great value to those who wish to inform readings of the work, study the source code and its programming architecture, and even produce a critical edition of the work

Viewing postmodernist television : Moonlighting, Twin Peaks and The Simpsons

Summary in English.Bibliography: p. [181]-195.Contemporary life is distinguished by a massive capacity for exchanging information. Increasingly comprehensive, global communication networks allow discrete realities to be linked. These prolific sources of representation generate a "membrane" of mediation, and a formal regime of fragmentation, depthlessness and allusiveness (Chambers, 11). These economic, epistemological and aesthetic conditions constitute postmodernism. This dissertation addresses the theoretical challenge of form by attempting to craft an approach commensurate to such semiotic density (Wollen, 65). Since formalist approaches have been criticised as ahistorical, attention is given to the concept's social dimensions hence the history and production context of communication technology is considered. The inquiry also acknowledges the specificities of its location. The matrix of unfamiliar allusions which characterises the South African experience of American texts, embodies the multi-tiered allusiveness of postmodernist texts. It also illustrates the cult precept that quotation can be appreciated even when its source is not recognized. Cult theorises viewership as active yet ambivalent (Eco, 1988, 454). The initial chapter delineates parameters in postmodernism, narrative, genre and cult theory. Subsequent chapters examine three postmodernist television series: Moonlighting, a detective series, Twin Peaks, a soap opera, and The Simpsons, an animated sitcom. Deploying parody, self-reflexivity and intertextuality, each has a complex relation with genre. Tony Bennett conceives of the latter as zones of sociality which constitute and are constituted by other zones (105). Changes in genre therefore articulate changes in modes of thinking and inscribe different reading strategies

Semiotic mode and sensory modality in multimodal semiotics: Recognizing difference and building complementarity between the terms

This article addresses an issue in multimodal cultural studies – the inconsistent use of the notions ‘mode’ and ‘modality’. As these notions are frequently employed interchangeably, making a clear distinction between them and positioning them in a coherent system will be helpful. To outline such a system, I envisage a two-layer framework where modes and modalities support each other. The central branch of multimodal semiotics (developing from Gunther Kress’ sociosemiotics towards John Bateman’s comprehensive approach) recognizes ‘mode’ as a pivotal research concept. While ‘mode’ as a semiotic resource is dependent on its materiality, culturally shaped practices and discourse semantics, the neurocognitive characteristics of sensory modalities are often seen as secondary to meaning-making. This article suggests that discussion of the semiotic potential of sensory modalities is complementary to the semiotic theory of multimodality. In order to illustrate this, I will construct an experimental typology of modality relations, which also takes modes into account. This typology distinguishes between supporting, modifying, conflicting, substituting and cross-activating relations

Processing Writing: From Text to Textual Interventions

This submission comprises the main bulk of the critical and textual work I have researched and developed over the last five years. Throughout this period, I have been particularly interested in exploring issues of interdisciplinarity for writers and text-practitioners, at both a critical and a methodological level. An interest in cross-media and site-related approaches to writing plays an important role in this. This is reflected in the thematics of the various critical texts, as well as in the fairly broad range of textual modes submitted. As a whole, this work can be seen in close continuity with my pedagogical involvement in developing, from its inception, the course of Performance Writing at Dartington College of Arts. Research support and leave regularly granted by Dartington has been a major factor in ensuring the continuity of my own work throughout this period. Some of the findings and investigations undertaken during my research have in turn also been instrumental in assisting the continued development of our curriculum. All of the critical texts presented here have come from invitations by other specialist institutions, both in England and abroad, to contribute to conferences and/or journals. Many have responded positively to my joint artistic and pedagogical takes and have sometimes also wished me to actively demonstrate these. This is reflected in the discussions and allusions to Performance Writing present in a number of these published texts. Commissions from festivals, galleries, magazines, small publishing presses have encouraged and ensured the public exposure of my textwork in its many forms. Because textual placing and typographical games are important to the arguments of my work, some of these pieces can only be submitted in original format or by providing reference to their active location or as visual documentation. The entire second part of my submission (as well as the second appendix) falls into this category. It represents an indissociable aspect of my submission

Contact Phase: Forms of Postmodernism. (Volumes I and II).

This dissertation examines variant mimetic strategies as the basis for a major dialectic within postmodern culture. The method applies and sometimes extends largely accepted theoretical statements on literary form. This synthesis provides an accessible, if at times complex, schema for organizing types, genres, and postmodern products based on image production and forms of spatial/temporal discourse. An investigation of several theorists and artists grounds a theory of literary and cinematic expressionism as the basis for postmodern culture, with particular emphasis given to the interpenetration of literary and cinematic styles in the twentieth century. An aesthetic dialectic emerges in the movement toward literary expressionism as opposed to mimetic naturalism. The expressionistic work is inherently metatextual and, consequently, more directly discursive. Expressionism has followed its own line of development throughout literary history. The eventual reliance of expressionism on the material image as a vehicle for signification carries with it a profound transformation of ideas about verbal culture, as well as aesthetic methods and analytical categories (Benjamin, Bakhtin, Ong, and Hillman contribute). The title comes from the contact function, Jakobson\u27s term for the use of medial presentation. This dissertation contains two volumes. The first volume is largely theoretical, including three chapters. Chapter One discusses relationships between Jakobson\u27s model and contemporary theory. Chapter Two includes a dialectical history of naturalism, expressionism, discourse, and intertextuality. Chapter Three considers postmodern forms, dream texts, and textual arrays; it also includes a generic classification system for images: The Image-Genre Grid. . The second volume applies the theory of the first volume to a comparison of Kafka and Beckett as writers who reveal the inherent indeterminacy of the material image. Chapter Four considers Kafka\u27s preoccupation with dream texts and his consequent anticipation of surrealism. Chapter Five examines Beckett as a theoretical writer whose texts present a metatextual language