Saturday 16 November 2013

Translationstudiesforfree part 6: Journal special issues on translation

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In a previous post in the translationstudiesforfree occasional series I linked to free content from a number of translation journals. Of course there are lots of non-translation-studies journals which do special issues on translation too. A few are even open access. For instance:

reconstruction: studies in contemporary culture has a 2011 issue on 'Multilingual realities in Translation'.

Volume 5, issue 1 of the Journal of Writing Research has a special section on writing and translation process research.

The French sociolinguistics journal Glottopol has an interest in translation; see e.g. this 2010 issue on orality and writing in translation (and there's a call out for a 2015 special issue on self-translation which looks interesting (useful bibliography provided, too); deadline April 2014).

Helsinki English Studies has two special issues on translation, issue 1, edited by Ritva Leppihalme,  and issue 4, 'The Road to Translation', a Festschrift in Leppihalme's honour edited by Outi Paloposki (Finnish and English content) (which includes by-the-by an interesting article on dissertation supervision from the student's point of view by Mika Loponen). 

New Comparison, the old journal of the British Comparative Literature Association, ran several special issues on translation which are available for download here.

There's a special issue of the Portuguese journal Anglo-Saxonica (Series III, No.3) on 'New Directions in Translation Studies' edited by Anthony Pym and Alexandra Assis Rosa on translation here (click on the cover image to download the whole issue). 

The Revue française de linguistique appliquée has a couple of special issues on translation, one from 2003 on 'La traduction aujourd'hui: théories et pratiques' which includes an interesting-looking article on the translation of philosophy, and one on 'linguistique et traduction' from 2009 which includes a useful article by Kirsten Malmkjaer revisiting definitions of translation competence. There's a 1994 Langages special issue on 'Le traducteur et l'ordinateur'.

UPDATE 5 March 2014: Gisèle Sapiro has edited a special issue of the journal Bibliodiversity on translation and globalisation. The issue is dedicated to the publisher and champion of translated literature André Schiffrin. Articles in French, English, Spanish. Downloadable or readable online.

UPDATE 6 March 2014: The journal Book History has an issue free to access (no.16) at time of writing which includes a number of interesting articles relating to translation and publishing.

A keyword search for translation in the 'journal' field in the Directory of Open Access Journals turns up some 45 journals, and a keyword search under articles brings up nearly 7,000 hits, in many languages. There turn out to be many open access journals which have an interest in translation, without being translation-focused (e.g. journals not on the European Society for Translation Studies list of translation journals). Next time you're looking for secondary literature, a direct search on the DOAJ might be worthwhile.

Another great site is revues.org. It lists 13 special issues on translation, including:
A 2011 issue of Trivium on medieval translation and information exchange in the Mediterranean region
A 2002 issue of ILCEA on cultural factors in translating pragmatic texts (in Delisle's sense) and a special issue of the same journal from 2011 on the ergonomics of translation (a nice, catchy way of talking about translators and their tools).
A 2002 special issue of IDEO on translation and reception of the literatures of Asia in French
There's a special issue of Études irlandaises on translation in an Irish context, including a very good interview with Michael Cronin or, as he is sometimes known in Ireland, Micheál Ó Cróinín. His observations on Ireland's 'sociolinguistic deficit' have a wider application too.
There's a very interesting-looking 2011 special issue on the translation of Flaubert, including Sharon Deane on the retranslation of Flaubert into English, here.
France seems very well provided with open access journal repositories, what with www.cairn.info and www.persee.fr (where a keyword search on translation is also worth doing). The latter has a nice 1999 special issue on literary translation in the nineteenth century from Romantisme. This portal also has a very substantial 2002 special issue of Actes de recherche en sciences sociales on translation and international literary exchanges edited by Johan Heilbron and Gisèle Sapiro.

I note with interest the charges obtaining on www.cairn.info: between 3 and 5 euro per article, e.g. the 2011 special issue of the Revue de la BNF on translation or the 2011 special issue of Études de linguistique appliquée on 'Traduire des français: des mots et des mondes'. This is refreshing, in an era when articles on the big publishing platforms can be priced at £30 or more for individual download. Could this be a trend? Is anyone else exploring the potential of mini- or micropayments for academic publishing?

Speaking of matters financial, it's worth noting that there is a potential ethical issue around open repositories like the DOAJ, which may include journals which impose publication charges on authors. There's a search on the DOAJ to filter this, if you feel that open access content should be free for both authors and readers.

On the same theme, for readers who know Italian I recommend an excellent, thought-provoking article, 'Autori nella rete', by the dubbing scriptwriters Eleonora di Fortunato and Mario Paolinelli, authors of Tradurre per il doppiaggio (Hoepli 2005), on the impact of the move to open access and free content on writers who are not also salaried academics.

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