The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translation

Kelly Washbourne, Ben Van Wyke

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781315517117
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translation provides an accessible, diverse and extensive overview of literary translation today. This next-generation volume brings together principles, case studies, precepts, histories and process knowledge from practitioners in sixteen different countries. Divided into four parts, the book covers many of literary translation's most pressing concerns today, from teaching, to theorising, to translation techniques, to new tools and resources. Featuring genre studies, in which graphic novels, crime fiction, and ethnopoetry have pride of place alongside classics and sacred texts, The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translation represents a vital resource for students and researchers of both translation studies and comparative literature.

Part 1

Contexts

2

Teaching and learning literary translation

Bill Johnston

Introduction: what does it mean to ‘teach’ literary translation?

There is a big question revolving around the word ‘teaching’ in the title of this chapter. What does it mean to ‘teach’ literary translation, and, even more importantly, what does it mean to ‘learn’ it? Indeed, what is the ‘it’ we are supposed to be teaching and learning? Like Julian Barnes’s description of novel-writing (Barnes 1986), ‘doing’ literary translation means doing many complex things simultaneously and well. How do translators ‘learn’ this craft, art or whatever it might be? What are the principle components of the literary translator’s skill, and how can these best be acquired?

To help in thinking about what it means to teach and learn literary translation, I propose to draw selectively on recent thinking in education, and to make use of certain ideas and terms from that field. Before that, though, it is important to clarify that this chapter will be about teaching and learning a kind of knowledge that is fundamentally procedural rather than declarative in nature. Literary translators need to be able to actually translate novels, poems and plays, and to do so well. Being able to define a stealth gloss, provide detailed historical background in a footnote, or explicate the semantic problems of a complex verb form in the source language, while all relevant to translation, are not in themselves adequate. A literary translator’s skill fundamentally relies on effective practice.

In the field of education, in recent decades there has been a major reconceptualisation of what ‘knowledge’ in general is, and what schools are supposed to be teaching, towards precisely the kind of procedural understanding mentioned above. All the traditional school subjects, from English through maths to the social and hard sciences, are increasingly being seen as arenas for doing things rather than knowing them – or, to use a common distinction, away from knowing that and towards knowing how. This reconceptualisation has led to new ways of thinking about what we are trying to achieve in classrooms. Numerous terms have been employed, with more or less subtle differences between them: experiential learning, proficiency-oriented approaches, and so on. What these approaches have in common is that they all, in their various ways, begin from a profoundly different kind of question about teaching than had previously been posed. Instead of thinking about what we want students to know when they complete a given course or programme, they instead ask: what should students be able to do at the end of this course or programme? In other words, what skills do we wish them to have acquired? This is equally the most useful question to ask in teaching literary translation.

In this regard, a second useful concept from the field of education, and specifically from teacher education, is that of the knowledge base (Shulman 1987). It is prima facie a slightly risky notion, since it tends to put us in mind of declarative rather than procedural knowledge – in my case, for instance, my first associations are with a doctor’s ‘knowing’ the names of all the bones in the human body, or a lawyer’s ‘knowing’ details from the statute books. In literary translation there is relatively little knowledge of that kind. Yet a knowledge base can comprise procedural knowledge as well as declarative knowledge – that is, knowing how along with knowing that. Doctors need to know how to conduct a diagnosis, how to interact with patients, and so on. Lawyers need to know how to convince a jury. And in fact for many skill-based occupations, procedural knowledge predominates – one thinks of athletes, musicians and actors, for example.

The knowledge base of literary translation recalls a comic short story in The Star Diaries by the Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem (Lem 1976). Lem envisages an alien civilisation in which there are five biological genders A representative of each of the five is needed to form a family and reproduce. Getting all five together at the right time and place is, as one can imagine, extremely difficult, and sometimes they only manage four: “the tragic quadrangle, or unrequited love”. The reason that this scenario recalls the training of translators is that for us too, a rare combination of abilities, dispositions and skills is needed to produce a good literary translation – which means a good literary translator. I would argue that at least three overlapping areas need to intersect: profound communicative proficiency in two or more languages; a deep understanding of the structures and patterns of language and the ways in which individual languages can differ; and an extensive grasp of present and past literary form, style and function. To this I would add a fourth component: a knowledge of how translations are produced, published and circulated, what one might call practical know-how.

A final useful concept from the scholarship of education is that of transfer. Transfer refers to the process by which skills, facts, etc. learned in one context can be effectively employed or applied in another. Usually in teaching and learning, this means transferring skills etc. learned in a controlled and often artificial setting such as a classroom to authentic real-world use. For example, in language teaching it is useful to know to what extent pronunciation and grammatical forms practised and seemingly mastered in the context of textbook and classroom exercises are likely to transfer into the student’s language use outside the classroom. (In many cases, in fact, transfer of this kind is frequently limited or non-existent.) In teacher education – the training of future teachers – to what degree do teaching practices developed in a controlled and supervised practicum transfer into the student teacher’s subsequent independent teaching? It is useful to ask the same question of the training of literary translators: what skills acquired and practised in the classroom (or similar setting) are most easily transferred into independent translating?

Any setting in which literary translation is ‘taught’ offers implicit responses to the questions raised above, though the people who created the programmes and courses concerned and those who carry them out may or may not have thought explicitly about them in such terms. The present chapter will not evaluate particular courses and programmes in the light of such questions. But for readers potentially or actually involved in teaching literary translation, I suggest that, when asked explicitly, these questions offer the most useful starting-point for fresh conceptualisations and revisions of existing practices. Above all, in reviewing below the programmes, courses and other arenas in which literary translation is taught and learned – and, by implication, thinking about how literary translation could be taught – the question of what we want translators to be able to do should be paramount in our thinking.

Arenas for teaching literary translation

University-based programmes

Most teaching of literary translation goes on in university settings. While many universities offer occasional undergraduate classes with a partial or exclusive focus on translation, the preparation of literary translators is, at present at least, almost exclusively restricted to the graduate level. Here too, numerous institutions offer some coursework in literary translation as part of graduate degree work in literature. Only relatively few, though, have dedicated programmes focusing exclusively on literary translation. All are at the graduate level. Such programmes may be housed in various units, including Creative Writing (for instance at the University of Iowa, the University of Arkansas, Columbia University, and the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom); English (for example Queens College of the City University of New York); or Comparative Literature (at SUNY Binghamton and at my home institution of Indiana University).

Each of these programmes differs, of course. Yet there are interesting commonalities both of inclusion and omission. All programmes include a number of craft-oriented workshops. Most require some coursework in literary study, usually with a strong international or transnational component. Many programmes require coursework in the history and theory of translation – such courses are often referred to under the term ‘translation studies’. And many programmes require each student to produce a substantial literary translation (often though not always with a commentary and/or annotations) as a capstone graduation project.

An interesting absence from the courses mentioned above is coursework in any aspect of linguistics. In my own (admittedly idiosyncratic and unformalised) career as a translator, the insights and concepts of many aspects of linguistics, from phonology (in which the study of nature of vowels is of great help in understanding what constitutes a rhyme or a half-rhyme) to discourse analysis (which offers crucial insights into how conversations are organised) have been vital in my work as a literary translator. Yet no programme I have examined even mentions this body of work. It is true that a lot of linguistics, especially the further reaches of theory, are not of direct use to translators, and that the coursework offered in most linguistic departments is not well adapted to our needs and concerns. Perhaps what is needed is the creation of relevant translation-oriented classes surveying basic information, such as the grammar, semantics and pragmatics of the target language, approached from the perspective of literature and writing. In the days of scholars such as Roman Jakobson and his ilk, the disciplinary link between linguistics and literary studies was strong; since then the two fields have largely gone their separate ways, to the detriment of the translator’s knowledge base.

Other topics not mentioned in course titles may well be covered as part of other courses. Few programme descriptions mention a focus on the ethical dimensions of literary translation. These are numerous and complex (Van Wyke 2010), and it would seem entirely appropriate to hope that they are discussed in graduate programmes. Another marked absence in terms of courses is the use of technological and other resources. Perhaps this too is covered elsewhere in a given programme. It seems essential to inform students of target-language and, where appropriate, source-language resources in print or electronic form. At the very least, an ability to use print and online dictionaries and other reference works would seem a vital part of being an effective translator. Electronic resources also are growing richer and more varied by the year, and increasingly deserve to be highlighted in literary translator training programmes (see Part 3 of Baer and Koby 2003).

Mentorship programmes

Recently a number of programmes have been created in which mentorships play a central or even exclusive role. Since 2010, the British Centre for Literary Translation has been offering Emerging Translator Mentorships. (The programme is now run by the Writers’ Centre at Norwich.) This programme, co-sponsored by numerous arts and literary organisations both in the UK and in other countries, pairs beginning translators with experienced practitioners working in the same language for a six-month mentorship “during which they work together on practical translation projects, developing their craft through working on a chosen text or texts” (Writers’ Center 2018)). The mentor’s role extends also to guidance in professional aspects of translation work such as approaching and dealing with publishers, negotiating contracts, and the promotion of published translations. The programme focuses especially on “languages whose literature is currently under-represented in English translation”; the twelve mentees for 2018, the current year, include translators from languages such as Tamil, Malayalam, Latvian and Lithuanian.

Inspired by the British model, in 2015 the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) began a mentorship programme similarly pairing experienced and emerging translators. At present six mentorships are offered. Four are language-specific, following the British model. Two are ‘non-language-specific’, meaning that the mentor does not (necessarily) know the language from which the mentee is working. The ALTA mentorships are longer – one year – and it is stated that the mentee “is expected to choose a project that can be completed in a year’s time” (www.literarytranslators.org/awards/mentorships). In the current year, 2017–2018, languages represented included Russian, Korean, Catalan, French, Occitan and Indonesian. The American mentorships further specify that the mentee “will only be advised on that particular project,” and that “a minimum of six meetings” are to be held, either in person, over Skype or by phone.

A third, language-specific model is offered by the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. Since 2013 Translation Fellowships have been available for emerging translators working from Yiddish into English. In 2017 there were eleven fellows. The fellowship lasts for one year, and provides support for the fellows “to complete a book-length project of their choosing” (Yiddish Book Center 2018). The YBC programme differs from the mentorships outlined above: each fellow has a mentor (who may or may not know Yiddish), but also the fellows meet in person three times a year at the Center for a two-day series of workshops and other meetings with experienced translators (not their mentors), publishers and other relevant professionals.

Residential programmes

A final option to have appeared in recent years is the short residential programme. While a handful of such programmes exist, not all are explicitly aimed at emerging translators. One long-established programme – the Banff International Literary Translation Centre’s three-week residency at the Banff Centre in Alberta in the Canadian Rockies – is aimed at practicing translators; while three student participants are selected each year, there is no explicit educational component to the programme. Likewise, the British Center for Literary Translation’s week-long annual International Literary Translation & Creative Writing Summer School, while it involves workshops and other professional activities, does not have an educational focus.

One residential programme with a stated training purpose is the Bread Loaf Translators Conference, or BLTC. BLTC began in 2015 as an offshoot of the well-known and long-established Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and is likewise associated with Middlebury College, being held at that school’s Bread Loaf campus in Vermont, USA. It comprises an intensive week-long series of workshops, one-on-one meetings with experienced translators, talks and other relevant events, including meet...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Contexts
• IIa Genres
• IIb Methods, frameworks and methodologies (tools, techniques and processes)
• III Applications and debates in production and reception
• IV Afterword
• Index