As a political novel that advocates violence against the Qing government by then revolutionists, Free Marriage brings severe criticism of the society to the fore. The novel, replete with strong ...political motivations, is under the guise of translation for two reasons: first, it can attract target readers due to the popularity of the translated works at that time; second, it can evade censorship from the authority. Translation is not an end but a means of "resistance" and even "engagement" for the pseudotranslators. Pseudotranslation is the quintessence and the most radical form of activism translation. By catering to the dominant ideology in society, the pseudotranslator brings the revolutionary or even subversive role of translation during transitional periods into full play.
This paper reports findings and observations on using the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) framework in a questionnaire study of literary translators’ self-imaging strategies and attitudes ...towards technology. The study took advantage of SCOT’s methodological flexibility to prioritise literary translators as a social group, hence compensating for the lack of opportunities to voice their interpretations of technology and become an active part in the framework’s development and implementation. Ultimately, the use (and adaptation) of SCOT proved useful for the identification, analysis, and discussion of recurrent themes in respondents’ narratives about technology and their position in society. In particular, SCOT helped to uncover the gap between how literary translators choose to (re)present themselves in society and how they see technology, and what other social groups might be pivotal for a more comprehensive, socially-relevant analysis. Finally, the paper presents suggestions for the use of SCOT in future research projects concerning the technologisation of the literary translation profession.
This special issue brings together European researchers that have carried out studies into the translation of swearwords from English into Danish, Greek, Italian and Spanish. The articles analyze the ...strategies used by the translators in a variety of genres, including television series, films, novels and plays. This introduction surveys the most important publications on the translation of swearwords, a subarea of research within translation studies that has gradually attracted the interest of researchers and practitioners, as the abundance of articles, book chapters and M. A. and Ph D. theses available in the past two decades attest. The contributors to this special issue analyze the pragmatics of swearing in translation by considering aspects such as emotional force, level of offensiveness, intended inferences of the original texts and their translation, and perlocutionary force.
•Translation scholars have analyzed the translation of swearwords since the turn of the century.•Most publications analyze English and another Western language.•Translations used to tone down or omit swearwords.•This tendency may be changing in the West.
