Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Monday, 9 November 2009
Playing with Forvo
I had already mentioned Forvo in this memo post. Today, I had some fun contributing to a few words, in Italian and Venetian. You can see my profile here.
Sunday, 8 November 2009
Familiar and unfamiliar through Alice's eyes
I want so much to know whether they’ve a fire in the winter: you never can tell, you know, unless our fire smokes, and then the smoke comes up in that room too – but that may be only pretence, just to make it look as if they had a fire. Well then, the books are something like our books, only the words go the wrong way...
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (1871/1982, p.127)
Alice’s adventures through the looking glass begin with a series of considerations that are based on her experience of a reality which is familiar to her. Alice applies this experience to something that is unfamiliar, the world beyond the mirror, and in doing so she wonders whether in this unknown world she may be able to find familiar things. Soon, however, she realises that the room in the mirror may not be quite the same, it “may be only pretence”. Then the mirror acquires a gas-like texture and allows Alice to walk through. Once that solidity is overcome, the mirror indeed shows a reality that is only superficially specular and in which the established order is subverted. Alice at the beginning still retains some of her mental categories and what she first sees in the room beyond the mirror is a mixture of familiar objects and oddities, like pictures apparently alive or a grinning clock. Soon however she starts interacting with all sort of unfamiliar characters as if their existence was nothing to wonder at, and treating them as part of her familiar categories.
Familiarity and unfamiliarity are two categories connected by the “mirror” of translation, which stops reflecting a familiar image and allows the translator to walk into the unfamiliar. Initially reflecting a familiar environment, the mirror slowly reveals the unfamiliar, and the translator begins her adventure into an unknown territory. This transformation is not, however, performed by the mirror. This latter reflects (and sometimes hides) the unfamiliar, but the “activator” of such process is the person who is willing to cross over into the unfamiliar and who is able to “see” the unfamiliar behind. Alice perceives the unfamiliar behind the mirror; her specific way of seeing it gives shape to a series of adventures that are her own. Familiarity and unfamiliarity thus become two subjective categories which furthermore tend to change along with Alice/the translator's awareness of both. Considering their subjectivity, it should come to no surprise, then, that 2 translations of the same source text show a different outcome. And yet, their quality is often assessed without considering the above mentioned subjectivity, let alone their (historical) context. Which is, indeed, rather awkward.
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (1871/1982, p.127)
Alice’s adventures through the looking glass begin with a series of considerations that are based on her experience of a reality which is familiar to her. Alice applies this experience to something that is unfamiliar, the world beyond the mirror, and in doing so she wonders whether in this unknown world she may be able to find familiar things. Soon, however, she realises that the room in the mirror may not be quite the same, it “may be only pretence”. Then the mirror acquires a gas-like texture and allows Alice to walk through. Once that solidity is overcome, the mirror indeed shows a reality that is only superficially specular and in which the established order is subverted. Alice at the beginning still retains some of her mental categories and what she first sees in the room beyond the mirror is a mixture of familiar objects and oddities, like pictures apparently alive or a grinning clock. Soon however she starts interacting with all sort of unfamiliar characters as if their existence was nothing to wonder at, and treating them as part of her familiar categories.
Familiarity and unfamiliarity are two categories connected by the “mirror” of translation, which stops reflecting a familiar image and allows the translator to walk into the unfamiliar. Initially reflecting a familiar environment, the mirror slowly reveals the unfamiliar, and the translator begins her adventure into an unknown territory. This transformation is not, however, performed by the mirror. This latter reflects (and sometimes hides) the unfamiliar, but the “activator” of such process is the person who is willing to cross over into the unfamiliar and who is able to “see” the unfamiliar behind. Alice perceives the unfamiliar behind the mirror; her specific way of seeing it gives shape to a series of adventures that are her own. Familiarity and unfamiliarity thus become two subjective categories which furthermore tend to change along with Alice/the translator's awareness of both. Considering their subjectivity, it should come to no surprise, then, that 2 translations of the same source text show a different outcome. And yet, their quality is often assessed without considering the above mentioned subjectivity, let alone their (historical) context. Which is, indeed, rather awkward.
Monday, 26 October 2009
"Ici on parle française"...
... says a restaurant nearby. I do hope they take better care with their food. (I should have added a photo, but yesterday I had an off day with batteries...)
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
The bizarre relationship cats have with autumn
Otello, sleeping on his electric heating pad. (It's actually my electric pad, but I'd rather keep quiet; he's quite territorial.)
Otello found his way into a warm and comfortable nest...
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Not really
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: Philadelphia & Your accent is as Philadelphian as a cheesesteak! If you're not from Philadelphia, then you're from someplace near there like south Jersey, Baltimore, or Wilmington. if you've ever journeyed to some far off place where people don't know that Philly has an accent, someone may have thought you talked a little weird even though they didn't have a clue what accent it was they heard. | |
| The Northeast | & |
| The Inland North | & |
| The South | & |
| The Midland | & |
| Boston | & |
| North Central | & |
| The West | & |
| What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz | |
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Localising (more or less) wines
I just bought a pair of ankle boots from Spain, in 3 colours. One of the colours is an intense, pleasant "Rioja" purple. At least this is how the producer describes it. However, since I bought my shoes from an Italian retailer, the shade has been renamed "Bordeaux". Sure enough, from the point of view of translation it makes perfectly sense; "bordeaux" is commonly used in Italian to indicate a shade of colour quite similar to the wine in question, whereas "rioja" is not and would perhaps leave more than one wondering what colour they are purchasing. Having said that, however, as a big fan of Rioja (the wine), I feel some of the flavour that this shade added to my shoes vanished while crossing the Pyrenees.
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