"Why don’t you tell them…" : unheard voices in Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah

Claude Lanzmann’s nine-hour documentary Shoah (1985) is a rich source of knowledge on the Nazi extermination of Jews in Central Europe. Its main material consists of interviews with people who witnessed the Holocaust, conducted in the very locations of the wartime events. The present paper analyses an iconic scene from Chełmno on Ner, where between 1940-43 and later 1944-45 the first Nazi death camp was located. A group of locals - gathered in front of the parish church, around one of the survivors of the camp - recall the events, sometimes in stunning technical detail. Their Polish utterances are translated into French; English subtitles are based on the French of the interpreter. The Polish linguistic material is not neutral: it is marked with dialectal and sociolectal features; the speakers engage in conversation on the side, comment on the situation of the interview in various ways, verbal and non-verbal. In the translation, both into French and English, sentences are skipped, the plurality of voices is flattened, and differences in memory are smoothed out. The resulting text is rather a summary than a translation. The paper offers close-up analyses of chosen sequences from the interview to show the complexity of the communication situation and the extent of distortion caused by the way translation works in the film. It also offers an alternative translation, which aims at giving voice to the actual people of Chełmno and acknowledging as fully as possible the complication and difficulty of memory construction through language, especially in a highly traumatic area. It hopes to offer insights into the bystander position in Holocaust discourse

"Do your job, translate!" : translation studies as a method in the humanities

Translation has become one of the most important aspects of contemporary culture in the globalised world: it is a condition for intercultural communication as well as a means of preservation of culturally specific elements. No longer can we ignore the impact is has on cultural praxis and the functioning of many disciplines of the humanities. As a methodological framework Translation Studies offers a set of analytic and interpretive tools for research into various "translation zones", for a long time seen as marginal, but in fact the most active spaces in cultures. It is there that the mediation processes and cultural transfer happens. The paper looks at the ways in which Translation Studies defines its aims and methods and sketches possible uses they may be put into in the humanities. The Translational Turn in Culture Studies poses challenges both to TS and other disciplines of the humanities, at the same time offering promising, new research perspectives

Polish studies in translation : re-mapping an interdisciplinary field

Developing dynamically since the 1950s, contemporary Polish studies in translation have their roots in earlier anthropological and philosophical writings of Bronisław Malinowski and Roman Ingarden. The impact of Structuralism, arguably the most influential paradigm for translation theory in Poland, was decisive in defining its goals, methods and tools as well as in opening new vistas. The interdisciplinary character of the field of Polish translation studies has been visible from very early on; we claim that this factor makes it such a rich and inspiring body of work in the 1960s and later. Looking at the phases of its development and its relationships with what was going on in translation studies elsewhere, we seek to re-map the established points of view on the nature of translation theories and descriptions developed in Poland. We reassess the importance of the creative dialogues within the field against the background of theoretical discourses these studies both stemmed from and invoked. This lets us see how Polish writings on translation relate to the discourses of today’s Translation Studies, especially that in many cases they seem to precede and herald them. We look at the ways in which Polish scholars have entered the area of Translation Studies, the positions they have been theorizing from and the contribution they have been making to the interdisciplinary area of international research in translation. Our paper is centred around a set of texts selected for a reader presenting the highlights of Polish studies in translation we worked on in 2013

Polskie oryginały angielskich pism. Tłumaczenia utworów Josepha Conrada na język polski w perspektywie historii przekładu

Twórczość Josepha Conrada należy do kanonu polskiej literatury XX wieku i zajmuje w nimmiejsce tak ważne, że można przeoczyć fakt, iż mamy do czynienia z przekładami. Tymczasemto właśnie przekłady i ich odczytania kształtowały recepcję brytyjskiego modernisty w Polsce.Jego dzieła były przez tłumaczy oraz interpretatorów i komentatorów jego twórczościumieszczane w wielorakich kontekstach historycznych, społecznych i politycznych, budzącróżnego rodzaju rezonanse i wpisując twórczość Conrada w określone dyskursy ideologiczne.Niniejszy artykuł proponuje przegląd niektórych z tych odczytań dokonany z perspektywyhistorii przekładu