translation studies - Facultatea de Litere - Dunarea de Jos

Foreword
Romanian of David Lodge’s Paradise News. In her opinion, literary translation in the late
twentieth century is equally regulated by expectancy (reader-oriented) norms and by the
writer’s referent power (the authorship issue). Her main line of argumentation foregrounds
the idea that there is a high degree of tolerance of the target language text and culture
towards the source language culture, hence the majority of culture-bound items (direct
references and cultural allusions) preserved intact into the Romanian version via a policy
of annexation, while neutralization is mostly due to an aesthetics of variability. Eventually,
the conclusion is reached that the readership’s profile is a complex one – the translator
addresses initiated readers – since they are assisted only in a few instances (at the level of
the paratext – footnotes). (Titela Vîlceanu, Ph.D., works as a lecturer at the University of
Craiova; contact: elavilceanu@yahoo.com)
In Translation Norms or Constraints, Mine Yazici deals with norm application in
the field of translation studies. Raising questions as to the stage at which norms are
involved in the translation process, she expands the notion of norms by comparing it with
other relevant concepts such as conventions and rules, to then discuss the impact of norms
on translation processes to disclose whether they act as constraints or guidelines. Her study
of norms in the translation theory entails the assessment of the translation act in terms of
norm-governed behaviour and is sustained by examples from Turkish literature. In the end,
the paper underlines the impact of norms in translation processes, providing a sound
ground for those who are interested in norms. (Mine Yazici, Ph.D., is an associate
professor at the department of Translation studies, University of Istanbul, organizing
theoretical classes, such as theories of translation studies, translation research methods,
composition, and domain-specific translation; contact: mineyazc@yahoo.com)
Within the framework of the French culture and translation studies, 7 papers were
accepted for publication, and they discuss a diversity of topics embracing some theoretical
and practical aspects which include, among other interests, the cultural dimension of the
translation act, personal experience in the long and pains-taking translation process of a
novel as well as didactical aspects of translations seen from a methodological perspective.
Discussing the role of the cultural dimension in the act of translation, Eugenia
Alaman’s paper, Le rôle de la dimension culturelle dans l’acte de traduction, defends the
idea that translators are not mere trans-coders endowed with brains. On the contrary, they
need practice and long hours of hard and steady individual study by means of which they
could become conversant with cultural elements in both the source and the target language,
thus being able to observe the inner structure of the discourse, and they constantly embark
upon a sequence of cognitive operations, assuming the interpretive role of a semiotician.
(Eugenia Alaman, Ph.D., is an associate professor; she works at the French department,
Faculty of Letters, “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi; contact: ga55la@yahoo.com)
Carmen Andrei’s paper Aspects théoriques et pratiques concernant la traduction
du roman “Tête à Tête” de Paul Emond presents bits of her experience as a translator of
the novel written by the Belgian author Paul Emond, and speaks about her quest for
solutions to several situations which were extremely interesting from a translation
theoretical as well as a practical point of view. One of the major translation problems was
rendering into Romanian Paul Emond’s personal lexical coinages created out of French
idiomatic structures, for the process of idiosyncratic lexicalization reveals an impressive
amount of individual experience combined with dictionary-itemized cultural imagery. The
transfer of the cultural element has thus imposed on the translator to opt for the translation
through equivalence of the newly-coined imagistic idiomatic structures reflecting the
author’s special inclination for body metaphors difficult to render in the target language.
(Carmen Andrei, Ph.D., works at the “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi; she has taught
courses of French literature and she has translated novels written in French into Romanian;
contact: carmen_andrei2001@yahoo.fr)
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