Christmas translation

Dear friends,

It's almost Christmas, and I just wanted to wish everyone who reads this blog a very merry and harmonious Christmas and a peaceful and happy New Year.

To celebrate a long and busy year, how about a little translation game? The challenge is to translate a four-line poem by Harryette Mullen from her wonderful collection Sleeping With The Dictionary:

Ask Aden

Are aardvarks anxious?
Do dragons dream?
Ever see an eager elephant?
Newts are never nervous, are they?

If anyone would like to have a go, do post your version in the comments, in any language, or if you're the retiring type, email me in private with your version - you can find my email address on my website. I'd love to read them.

light relief

Hi all,

It's late in the term, everyone's cold, tired and damp, so here are some snippets about translation and interpreting which should entertain as well as providing food for thought. (Apocryphal, schmocryphal!)

Carol

webinar on terminology management (Chartered Institute of Linguists

Another webinar organised by the tireless Lucy Brooks at the Chartered Institute of Linguists.

For any enquiries, please contact lucinda.brooks@lucybrooks.com

WEBINAR ORGANISED BY THE TRANSLATING DIVISION
OF THE CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTS.

A talk by Sonia Cutler, BSc (Hons), MSc on managing terminology. Whether
you are a freelance translator handling dozens of terminology lists from
different clients, an interpreter, or an editor, Sonia's presentation will
consider the importance of terminology and then provide useful information, hints,
and tips on how to manage terminology effectively. Sonia is a member of the Society
for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP) and a member of the European Association
of Science Editors (EASE).

To register, please click on the link below. After registration you will be
directed to a web page containing further information about this and other
webinar.

Title: "Terminology Management"
Date: Thursday, January 14, 2010
Time: 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM GMT

Register now by clicking here.

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing
information about joining the Webinar.

There will be a charge to attend the webinar: £8.00 (£8.50) for students,
£12 (£12.70) for members of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, and £15
(£15.90) for non-members. (Figures in brackets are the cost for payment by
Paypal - the first figure is the cost of payment by cheque). Payment should
be completed by 48 hours before the event. Your link to attend will be
released on receipt of payment.
This webinar is arranged by the Translating Division of the Chartered
Institute of Linguists

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows(R) 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista

Macintosh(R)-based attendees
Required: Mac OS(R) X 10.4 (Tiger(R)) or newer

literary translation workshop, Cairo, January 2010

This looks really good - and is fully funded for the first year of its operation. It is based on the summer school format piloted by the British Centre for Literary Translation. Talented translators from and into Arabic with literary interests should find it extremely rewarding. Do draw it to the attention of anyone you think might be interested.


Call for participants: Arabic Literary Translation Workshop
Cairo, 24-30 January 2010

The Arabic Literary Translation Workshop is an intensive one week residential literary translation training programme that will provide the opportunity for hands-on translation practice, alongside exploration of literary translation as a bridge between the Arabic and English language publishing industries. It is organised by the British Council, the British Centre for Literary Translation, Arts Council England and Penguin Arabia, with the support of Banipal Magazine.

The longer term aims:
· To create and maintain a network of talented new generation translators who are plugged into the international publishing and theatre network
· Combat the shortage of translators from English to Arabic and Arabic to English in order to encourage the quality and quantity of contemporary Arab and British fiction and plays in translation.
· To support industry professionals looking to work with English and Arabic translators
· Engage industry professionals and partners to support and influence the local infrastructure

Format: The basic model involves a week-long, residential programme of hands-on translation practice, supplemented with seminars and lectures addressing various aspects of the theory, practice and business of literary translation. The hands-on practice is offered in the form of language-specific workshops, led by an experienced, practicing translator.

Each workshop group comprises no more than 8 participants, who are generally early- to mid-career translators, led by an expert translator who possesses a great deal of experience and a significant reputation in the field. The author of the piece of text to be translated is also a vital part of the workshop group. Participants are organized into Arabic-to-English and English-to-Arabic language groups, depending on their mother tongue or language of habitual use. The group works together to produce a consensus translation of the selected piece of text, which may be a play, a short story or a chapter from a novel.

The translation workshops are supplemented throughout the week by seminars on the business of translation and the relationship with all facets of the publishing industry, given by leading representatives in the field.

Networking is also a key part of the week. Participants have the opportunity to interact with publishers, editors, agents and authors, and to establish a community of translators for future collaboration and support.

Participants are required to take part for the entire duration of the course, arriving in Cairo on Sunday 24 January, and departing on the morning of Saturday 30 January. There will be allotted free sessions for sightseeing/exploring the city during the course of the week, but as part of this residential intensive programme, participants will be expected to attend every session.

Participant profile: Participants are expected to be at differing stages in their careers, but will all have a proven enthusiasm for and some background in literary translation. The most experienced participants will already have full-length works of translation published in the target language, but will be looking for skills input and publishing know-how to raise their abilities to the next level. The less experienced students will have a demonstrable interest in literary translation, and a desire to become more professionally active in this field. Academic qualifications will bolster an application, but will not be the sole criteria upon which decisions are made. They will have experience of translating either novels or for the theatre. For this course we will not be including the translation of poetry.

Participants are likely to be solicited from:
· Formal and informal groupings of literary translators (online communities, academic associations and institutes, and others)
· Editors and translators known to local contacts and stakeholders as enthusiastic and committed literary translators with a bright future

Potentially suitable participants should be contacted as soon as possible and encouraged to apply. In the case of this pilot, we are inviting applications through a wide network of contacts, which will be selected by a steering committee made up of British Council, Arts Council, Penguin Arabia and the British Centre for Literary Translation. In this first year, the return airfare, accommodation and cost of the one-week course will be free of charge to participants.

How to apply: Participants should submit the following to Rachel Stevens rachel.stevens@britishcouncil.org before 26 November 2009:
· CV/Resume in English, including professional and academic qualifications
· Cover letter in English, indicating their area of interest, their current involvement with literary translation, and their reasons for joining the course
· A sample translation of up to 1000 words of a piece of literature (attaching both the original text and the translation)

For more information, please call Rachel Stevens on +44 (0)20 7389 3165, or email Rachel.stevens@britishcouncil.org

Event for Barbara Wright, London, March 2010

Barbara Wright, who died last year, was one of the best-known literary translators in Britain. In her honour, a conference is being organised in the spring to discuss her work. It should be very interesting for anyone interested in twentieth-century French literature and translation.

TRANSLATION AS ART: Barbara Wright, Literary Translation and Creation
LONDON
Friday 26th March 2010

Birkbeck University of London
Clore Building, 25-27 Torrington Square, London WC1E 7JL
Room CLO GO1
10 am – 4 pm
Institut Français
17 Queensberry Place, London SW7 2DT
6 – 7.30pm

Speakers include: David Bellos; Celia Britton; Breon Mitchell; John Calder; Nathalie-Piégay-Gros; Régis Salado; Paul Fournel; Jill Fell; Ros Schwartz; Arlette-Albert-Birot

Focusing on the work of Barbara Wright (1915-2009), musician, art critic and translator from French into English, this one-day international colloquium will have two main aims. It will firstly investigate several aspects of the literary translator’s work, from the choice of the text to be translated and published to the archival treatment of the work involved in the process of translating. In analysing the translator’s work as mediator and creator, the colloquium will investigate the relationships between music, literary criticism, interpretation and textual production.

It will also examine some of the challenges faced by the translator as well as by the reader of avant-garde, non-canonical texts. In so doing, the colloquium will secondly discuss the work of a selection of the writers translated by Barbara Wright (Jarry, Albert-Birot, Tzara, Arrabal, Queneau, Sarraute, Pinget… among others*). Given some of these choices of texts and authors, a particular feature will be the translation of humour. It is also hoped that this colloquium will provide a less familiar map of twentieth-century French Literature, including Pataphysics and the OULIPO.

The conference is organised with the support of Birkbeck University of London’s Centre for Multilingual & Multicultural Research (CMMR) and Department of European Cultures and Languages; the University of Westminster’s Department of Modern and Applied Languages; and the Service Culturel de l’Ambassade de France in London in partnership with Indiana University Bloomington.

Conference organisers: Debra Kelly, Professor of French and Francophone Literary and Cultural Studies, University of Westminster; Jean-Marc Dewaele, Professor of French and Multilingualism, Birkbeck University of London; and Madeleine Renouard, Emeritus Reader in French, Birkbeck University of London.
Conference fee: (includes tea/coffee and sandwich lunch) £15; students £10.
Free to Birkbeck and University of Westminster students, past and present.

*For a list of Barbara Wright’s translations, and conference registration details, please contact: H.Scott at westminster.ac.uk

Literary translation conference, New Zealand

Lots of goodies around at the moment for those of us interested in literary translation. I have just seen the following advertisement for a conference organised at the New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation which looks very worthwhile (including translation workshops). Plus, Venuti AND Spivak!

WRITING PAST EACH OTHER?
LITERARY TRANSLATION AND COMMUNITY

International Conference on Literary Translation

Te Tumu Whakawhiti Tuhinga o Aotearoa / The New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation
Victoria
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

December 11-13, 2010

FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
Lawrence Venuti
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Metge and Kinloch (Talking Past Each Other: Problems in Cross-Cultural Communication, 1978), explore the ways in which those from diverse backgrounds misread important cultural differences in everyday life. At this conference we hope to explore how literary translation promotes awareness and appreciation of such differences, while simultaneously creating a sense of community across local and international boundaries, or how a lack of such exchange can contribute to the isolation of literary cultures: how is globalisation affecting international literary exchange? how might translation contribute more to literary communities?

While papers on how these issues are articulated in the Asia-Pacific region are especially welcome, we also encourage paper proposals on a wide range of topics related to practical and theoretical aspects of literary translation and covering cross-cultural linguistic interaction from across the globe. Panel proposals (3 to 4 speakers) are especially welcome. Conference papers are to be delivered in English, but may relate to any of the world's languages.

As a special feature of the conference, we are also organising translation workshop sessions with noted New Zealand poets (participants should pre-register; details to come). There will also be an evening reading session.

Please send abstracts (title of paper, name of presenter, 250 word outline and a short (50 word) bio-bibliographical note) by 31st March 2010 to NZCLT@vuw.ac.nz. We hope to publish selected papers from the conference in a refereed volume.

Further information about the conference will be posted in early 2010 at http://www.victoria.ac.nz/victoria-conferences/default.aspx