Translating onomatopoeia from Chinese into Spanish : a corpus-based analysis

This article analyses how Chinese onomatopoeias have been translated into Spanish. It is based on a corpus of seven contemporary Chinese novels and their respective Spanish translations. It begins with a brief overview of the features which distinguish onomatopoeias from other types of words and how the corpus was prepared. This is followed by an analysis of how the translators of the selected novels deal with onomatopoeias seen in the light of Toury's (2004) adequacy-acceptability conceptual framework and the classification of translation techniques proposed by Molina (2006). This study concludes that, although suppressing onomatopoeias or substituting them for another type of word are common practices, these are not the only possible techniques to transfer these text units. There are other choices that allow for the maintenance of their expressive capacity in the target text (TT), without violating the TT literary system and culture and that depend on the role of the translator in the translatio

Ressenyes

Index de les obres ressenyades: Anna MATAMALA RIPOLL, Interjeccions i lexicografia. Anàlisi de les interjeccions d'un corpus audiovisual i proposta de representació lexicogràfic

Ressenyes

Index de les obres ressenyades: Esther ALLEN (ed.), Ser traduït o no ser. Informe PEN / IRL sobre la situació internacional de la traducció literàri

Review

Obra ressenyada: Xiaohui YUAN, Politeness and audience response in Chinese-English subtitling. Peter Lang, 201

A quest for effective and inclusive design of Chinese characters in subtitling

Research on subtitling has developed rapidly in most Western countries in the last two decades, resulting in a certain consensus about standards. In response to new social and political challenges, in recent years the focus of research has broadened to include the usability and effectiveness of subtitles for all audiences. However, research on subtitling in Chinese-speaking territories is lagging behind, although their audiovisual industry is very powerful and that the rate of citizens with accessibility problems is growing. This paper carries out a literature review that reveals a lack of guidelines regarding appropiate typefaces, size, color, exposition time and number of characters per line, as well as a scarcity of empirical and experimental approaches backing up current practices. At present, the manner information is displayed through subtitles prioritizes attractiveness over its effectiveness. Therefore, they are not inclusive enough, since they do not always meet the needs of particular audiences, such as the elderly, the visually impaired or the deaf or hard of hearing. This article synthesizes and critically reviews the state of the art, highlighting those aspects of Chinese subtitling practices that need further study vis-à-vis establishing guidelines to assure the information they convey is usable and effective for all audience

Orientalism and occidentalism : two forces behind the image of the Chinese language and construction of the modern standard

This article identifies the principal myths and misconceptions surrounding the Chinese language and, by means of discourse analysis, shows how they have been expressed and become entrenched in the academic world, both in China and in the West, despite the evidence which undermines the premises on which these myths are founded. We also show how these views originated from applying a Western linguistic model to descriptions and reforms of the Chinese language, thus, reinforcing the orientalist discourse on Chinese that still persists and has permeated the Chinese language teaching. We tackle these issues from a Spanish perspective at a time when the country is experiencing important educational changes at three levels. First, there is an increase in courses on Chinese Studies.Second, European university curricula are undergoing a process of homogenisation. And, third, a new policy to standardise language learning, teaching and assessment at all stages of education is being implemented all over Europe. We are concerned about this policy because the model designed for European languages is also being applied to non-European languages. We believe that this new context is an ideal occasion to question existing discourses and bring forth new approaches towards the production and reproduction of knowledge related to the Chinese language

Orientalismo y occidentalismo : dos fuerzas subyacentes en la imagen y la construcción de la lengua china

This article identifies the principal myths and misconceptions surrounding the Chinese language and, by means of discourse analysis, shows how they have been expressed and become entrenched in the academic world, both in China and in the West, despite the evidence which undermines the premises on which these myths are founded, creating an ambivalent image of Chinese that inspires both admiration and rejection. We also show how these views originated from applying a Western linguistic model to descriptions and reforms of the Chinese language, thus reinforcing the orientalist discourse on Chinese that still persists.El presente trabajo pretende identificar los principales mitos y confusiones que existen alrededor de la lengua china. Mediante análisis del discurso, ilustraremos cómo estos mitos se han articulado y han arraigado en los círculos académicos durante décadas, a pesar de las evidencias que los cuestionan. De este modo, tanto en China como en Occidente, se ha creado una imagen ambivalente de la lengua china que provoca tanto admiración como rechazo. Al mismo tiempo, se expone cómo esta visión resultó en la aplicación de un modelo lingüístico occidental al describir y reformar la lengua china. Con estos argumentos, pretendemos señalar aspectos orientalistas que aún perviven en el discurso sobre esta lengua

Un análisis traductológico e intercultural de la literatura popular china : el caso de las "escritoras guapas"

Para entender la aparición y la repercusión de las obras de las llamadas «escritoras guapas» (meinü zuojia) hay que partir de una aproximación interdisciplinaria (combinando la antropología cultural y los estudios de traducción) que permita leerlo también en clave china, es decir, conocer las circunstancias que envuelven este fenómeno socio-literario en el contexto donde se engendran, así como las que permiten que se conviertan en un producto cultural global y nos lleguen traducidas. Como punto de partida tomamos prestada la idea de García- Canclini (2004) de relacionar los conceptos de desigualdad, diferencia y desconexión para analizar hasta qué punto la imagen que se proyecta de ellas de exclusión de la cultura dominante, es un elemento más con el que juegan las editoriales como parte de su estrategia comercial. Finalmente, analizaremos cuál es el papel de todos los integrantes de este proceso (autoras, lectores, editoriales y traductores.To be able to understand the image and the impact of the works of the so-called «beautiful writers» (meinü zuojia) we must take an interdisciplinary approach (combining cultural anthropology and translation studies) that allows usto interpret it from the Chinese standpoint.This helps us understand the circumstances surrounding thissocio-literary phenomenon within its context, as well as those that make possible for these novelsto become a global cultural product and eventually be translated into Western languages. We have borrowed from García-Canclini (2004) the idea of working simultaneously with the concepts of inequality, difference, and disconnection to analyse to what extent these writers' projected image of exclusion from the mainstream culture −both because their works have been censured and because of the valuesthey reflect through their female main characters− is based on reality or if, on the contrary, it isjust part of the publishers' commercialstrategy. Finally, we will analyse the role of all the subjectstaking part in this process(authors, readers, publishing houses and translators), as well as how they interrelate within their own literary systems and between two different ones