LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 14:6 June 2014
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIAL

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2012
M. S. Thirumalai
Custom Search

A Critical Review of the Role of Translator's Critical Reading and
Pragmatic Function of "Preface" as a Paratextual Element vis-a-vis
the Readers of the Translated Text

Farzaneh Shokoohmand, Zohreh Taebi Noghandari, and Ali Khazaee Farid

Abstract

This research focuses on the impact of translator’s critical reading (Baker, 2010) on the text which is called translator's preface (as a paratextual element). Translators who have translated the same text may not have the same interpretation for the same work. For example, one feature of a work would seem important for one translator but not so for the other. According to Genette (1997) it is possible to access these differences by studying the prefaces of the translators. He believes that the main role of the preface is to explain for the reader why and how to read the translated book. When interpretation of a work is different among translators it is not surprising that their reason for translating a book and their way of persuading readers to read their translation would be different from each other.

The importance of this research article lies in the fact that it will show how reading and interpretation of translators are reflected in their prefaces and how the prefaces unwittingly manipulate our understanding of that work. At the end, as a case study, prefaces of two translations of a Latin American novel are analyzed to see how translators, as critical readers, might have different interpretations of a novel and how these are reflected in their prefaces.

Key words: critical reading, pragmatic function, paratextual element, preface.

1. Introduction

1.1 Translators as Critical Readers

Venuti (as mentioned in Baker, 2010: 65), in his essay Translation as Cultural Politics: Regimes of Domestication in English, refers to violence of translation. He believes that "translation is inherently violent because it necessarily involves reconstituting the foreign text in accordance with values, beliefs and representations that pre-exist it in the target language". Here Venuti refers to different social, political and other backgrounds of translators and how their implications are reflected in different strategies and modes of translation used by them. But translation would be more violent than it normally is when there are different personal values and beliefs and different ideology among the translators of the same work. Consequently there would be different reasons for translating a work which result in the use of different strategies and modes of translation.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Farzaneh Shokoohmand, M.A. Student
Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences
Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
Iran
f.shokoohmand@yahoo.com

Zohreh Taebi Noghandari
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences
Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
Iran

Ali Khazaee Farid
Associate Professor Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences
Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
Iran
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.