The AALITRA Review

AALITRA Review Vol.20 (2024): Exploring Indigenous Australian literature in other languages

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Introduction

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This 2024 issue of The AALITRA Review is thematic, as is the Review’s practice every second year.

Exploring the Translation Process of Bruce Pascoe’s Young Dark Emu into Italian: Choices, Reflections and Learnings

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“Teaching children that’s the only way to change anything” affirms Bruce Pascoe (Smyrk 29). It can be argued that his book Young Dark Emu: A Truer History (YDE), aimed at young people (7-12 yr.), contributes to changing Australian identity and rethinking life across the planet at a time of global environmental crisis. As is often the case, Aboriginal Australian literature’s well-defined political identity demands ethical awareness in translation. YDE’s dual nature: culture-sensitive counter-memory and children’s literature contributes to complexity. Arguably, antagonistic translation strategies would suit this type of text. Translating YDE for Italian children, became an exploration of strategies and choices in relation to our ethical positioning. A priori standards were met by navigating a theoretical framework interwoven to assist the process. An action research design guided action and reflection, leaning broadly (but not restrictedly) on the contributions to Translation of Reiss, Toury, Eco, Venuti and Osimo. This article discusses choices, rationale behind solutions, insights, consistency with ideology and ethical positioning. The focus is on the process of making ‘common sense’ of the encounter of two very far apart cultures.

Metaphor and Translation: Case Studies in Indigenous Australian Poetry

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The translatability of metaphors is one of the most complex and debated issues in translanguaging studies and can be approached from a variety of perspectives. This contribution focuses specifically on the interlingual dimension, exploring the translatability of figurative language and, in particular, metaphors. Developing as a reflection on the practical experience of translating a number of Australian authors into Italian, the paper examines the ways in which three First Nations writers (Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Ali Cobby Eckermann, and Evelyn Araluen) employ metaphors, by comparing their verses in English with some possible Italian translations.

Translating into French The White Girl by Tony Birch, with its Indigenous Australian idiosyncrasies of style, context and contents

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This is a Translation & Commentary on translating into French Tony Birch's The White Girl. Since Tony Birch was trained as a boxer by his father, the metaphor of boxing seems apt here to caracterise his style, and the task of the translator. Andrew Cherterman's Truthfulness ethical principle frames the need to do justice to the novel's main topic, the plight of Aboriginal peoples confronted to hardship and violence throughout the whole history of Australia-in-the-making. Aware of the proclivity of French translations to rationalise and expand, two of Antoine Berman's twelve deforming tendancies, and buoyed by private communication with Tony Birch, the translator's roadmap is ultimately: “translate as necessary”.

Bone-Deep: How a Novel Took Me All the Way to Aotearoa, New Zealand: An Annotated Translation

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Many words have been written on it by distinguished scholars, writers, and reviewers, but in my own voice, and from my peculiar perspective of an Italian second-language speaker of English, trained in literary translation, I would say that Keri Hulme's the bone people is a tale of the tension between two coexisting cultures and the synthetic third space existing between them.

Blackfella-Whitefella Chinese Translation

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This is a Translation into Chinese of Blackfella Whitefella, a rock song written by Neil James Murray (1956-) & George Djilaynga (also known as George Rrurrambu, 1957-2007), recorded by their Aboriginal rock group Warumpi Band, and released in 1985 as part of their album Big Name, No Blankets.

Masaya Shimokusu on translating Kim Scott for Japanese readers

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Reading / Translating Proust

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Brian Nelson offers some reflections derived from his work as co-editor (and contributing translator) of the new, 7-volume Oxford edition of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. His translation of the first volume, The Swann Way, appeared in 2023.

Translating Marilyne Bertoncini’s ode to artistic inspiration and collaboration in her poem Adam&ve

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Marilyne Bertoncini’s poem Adam&ve, composed just last year in December 2023, is an escape into the furthest reaches of the galaxy. In Adam&ve, she draws her audience into a “space” before time and humankind, which flirts with the Christian origin story of Adam and Eve, the first humans to be created. Stardust, “nebulous” dreams and existentialism pervade her verse and allow the sound and images of lone words to take centre stage. This article will delve into the translation I undertook of this poem for the AALITRA Poetry Competition of 2024 and how I, as both a lover of poetry and researcher at the University of Melbourne, have come to appreciate her poem within the body of Bertoncini’s work and prolific career.

Translation of Marilyne Bertoncini’s Adam&ve

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Marilyne Bertoncini’s poetry frequently delves into themes of nature and the transience of human life. Her works are rich in sensual imagery, skillfully weaving the physical and metaphysical to create layers of meaning that delve into life, loss and continuity. Bertoncini’s poem Adam&ve exemplifies this complexity through its existential, interwoven metaphors, as I interpret them.

The concept of “meaning” in literary translation from a Wittgensteinian Perspective

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The concepts of meaning, family resemblance, language games and way of life that Ludwig Wittgenstein developed in his book Philosophische Untersuchungen have been widely analysed and debated in different disciplines (i.e. Philosophy, Linguistics, Psychology, etc.). In this article, I aim to summarize them and link them to their relevance when translating literary texts. I believe that translating a literary text implies, first, an interpretation as well as comprehension of the text by the translator. In doing so, their translation cannot be a mere conveyance of words from one language to another, but of a full interpretation and search of effects.

Navigating Linguistic Landscapes: Translating Wei Zhou's 'The Hidden Mother Tongue' for Cross-Cultural Understanding

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This submission presents an English translation of "The Hidden Mother Tongue" (隐蔽的母语), a personal essay by contemporary Chinese writer Wei Zhou, along with a comprehensive commentary on the translation process. Wei's essay explores the complex interplay between linguistic identity, cultural assimilation, and regional discrimination in modern China, focusing on the experiences of Chongming Island natives living in Shanghai. The translation aims to capture the nuanced tone of the original text, balancing personal reflection with broader sociological observations.

The accompanying commentary examines the challenges encountered during the translation process and the strategies employed to address them. Key areas of focus include:

Representing dialect and accent differences in English without resorting to potentially problematic dialect representations
Conveying culture-specific concepts and references for an English-speaking audience
Preserving the author's distinctive voice and style
Managing idiomatic expressions and wordplay unique to the source language (Chinese)

The commentary also reflects on the broader implications of translating contemporary Chinese literature for a global audience, highlighting the translator's role as a cultural mediator. This submission contributes to the field of literary translation studies by offering insights into the practical and theoretical considerations involved in bridging linguistic and cultural gaps between Chinese and English.

Sergei Aksakov: Collecting Butterflies (Excerpts)

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The Road to Scientia Intutiva

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THE 25 YEARS OF PHILOSOPHY – A SYSTEMATIC RECONSTRUCTION

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS - 2017

AUTHOR: ECKHART FÖRSTER – PROF EMERITUS – HUMBOLDT UNIVERSITY BERLIN

THE FAILURES OF PHILOSOPHY – A HISTORICAL ESSAY

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 2020 (PRINCETON AND OXFORD)

AUTHOR: STEPHEN GAUKROGER – PROF EMERITUS – UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

Book Review of The Routledge Handbook of Translation, Interpreting and Crisis

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