Translation of autobiography : narrating self, translating the other / Susan Xu Yun.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Xu Yun, Susan, author.

Contributor:

Lee, Kuan Yew, 1923-2015, honouree.

Series:

Benjamins translation library ; Volume 136.

Benjamins Translation Library, 0929-7316 ; Volume 136

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Translating and interpreting--Singapore.

Translating and interpreting.

Translating and interpreting--Theory, etc.

Autobiography.

Translating and interpreting--Style.

Discourse analysis, Narrative.

Education, Bilingual--Singapore.

Education, Bilingual.

Singapore--Politics and government--21st century.

Singapore.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (249 pages) : illustrations (some color), tables.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam, [Netherlands] ; Philadelphia, [Pennsylvania] : John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2017.

Summary:

This book presents an interdisciplinary study that straddles four academic fields, namely, autobiography, stylistics, narratology and translation studies. It shows that foregrounding is manifested in the language of autobiography, alerting readers to an authorial tone with certain ideological affiliations. In refuting the presumed conflation between the author, narrator and character in autobiography, the study emphasizes readers’ role in constructing an implied author. The issues of implied translator, assumed translation and rewriting are explored through a comparative analysis of the English and Chinese autobiographies by Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew. The analysis identifies different foregrounding practices and attributes these differences to an implied translator. Further evidence derived from narrative-communicative situations in the two autobiographies underscores divergent personae of the implied authors. The study aims to establish a deeper understanding of how translation and rewriting have a far-reaching impact on the self- and world-making functions of autobiography. This book will be of special interest to scholars and students of linguistics, literature, translation and political science.

Contents:

Intro

Translation of Autobiography

Editorial page

Title page

LCC data

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

List of tables

List of figures

List of abbreviations

Introduction

1. Aims and scope of the book

2. Data selection criteria

3. Bilingualism in Singapore

4. Pseudo-original and assumed translation

5. Translator's dilemma in Singapore

6. Organization of the book

Chapter 1. Distinctiveness of autobiography: Binary oppositions and theoretical dimensions

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Distinctive features of autobiography

1.2.1 Autobiography and memoirs: Self or others

1.2.2 Autobiography and biography: Subjectivity or objectivity

1.2.3 Autobiography and fictive autobiography: Truth or myth

1.2.4 Autobiography and canonical literature: Comprehensibility or exceptionality

1.2.5 Autobiography and historiography: Private or public

1.3 Review of studies on autobiography

1.3.1 Shifts of critical focus

1.3.2 Self-making and world-making functions

1.3.3 Enactment and didactic role

1.3.4 Referential and rhetorical value of language and style

1.3.5 Competing voices and identity crisis in translation

1.4 Conclusion

Chapter 2. Language of autobiography: Style and foregrounding

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Literariness in autobiography

2.2.1 Criteria of literariness

2.2.2 Subjective and objective language

2.3 Stylistic analytical framework

2.3.1 Foregrounding and familiarization

2.3.2 Checklist of linguistic and stylistic categories

2.3.3 Functional grammar and transitivity

2.3.4 Linguistic criticism

2.3.5 Integrated model of stylistic analysis

2.4 Foregrounding analysis of Challenge

2.4.1 Lexical categories: Underlexicalization

2.4.2 Syntactic categories: Contrast

2.4.3 Figures of speech: Subtlety.

2.4.4 Context and cohesion: Enhancement of coherence

2.5 Conclusion

Chapter 3. Point of view in autobiography: Character, narrator and implied author

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Narrative-communicative situation

3.2.1 Levels of analysis

3.2.2 Narrative-communicative situation

3.3 Implied author, narrator and character relationship in autobiography

3.3.1 Implied author ≠ real author

3.3.2 I-narrator ≠ implied author

3.3.3 I-character ≠ I-narrator

3.3.4 Hypothetical narrative structure in autobiography

3.4 Point of view theories

3.4.1 Psychological aspects: Internal and external perspectives

3.4.2 Visual aspects: Focalization

3.4.3 Ideological aspects: Slant and filter

3.4.4 Linguistic aspects: Mind style

3.5 Conclusion

Chapter 4. Narrating and experiencing self: Mimesis within diegesis

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Constituting consciousness

4.3 Deixis, modality and speech/thought presentation

4.3.1 Deixis and reader's consciousness

4.3.2 Modality and the speaker's consciousness

4.3.3 Speech and thought presentation: The narrator's/character's consciousness

4.4 Character's consciousness: The mimesis

4.4.1 DS

4.4.2 FIS

4.4.3 DT and FIT

4.5 Narrator's consciousness: The diegesis

4.5.1 NRSA and NRTA

4.5.2 IS and IT

4.5.3 Paradoxical FDT

4.6 Interplay between character and narrator

4.6.1 Empathy

4.6.2 Irony

4.7 Conclusion

Chapter 5. Implied translator: The "other" voice in translation and rewriting

5.1 Introduction

5.2 The implied translator and the "other" voice

5.3 Rewriting

5.3.1 Narratorial differences

5.3.2 Poetics and patronage in rewriting

5.4 Foregrounding and transitivity in Type I texts

5.4.1 Overlexicalization

5.4.2 Syntactic foreignness

5.4.3 Circumlocution and overevaluation

5.4.4 Incoherence.

5.5 The "other" voice in Type III texts

5.5.1 Faithful translator with "passive" voice

5.5.2 Skilful translator with "active" voice

5.6 Conclusion

Chapter 6. Translating the "other": Unreliable narrator and discordant voice

6.1 Introduction

6.2 The "other" consciousness in translated narrative

6.3 Fallible filter, unreliable narrator and discordant narration

6.4 Fallible filters and translator-conscious irony

6.4.1 Irony and empathy retained

6.4.2 Irony and empathy created

6.4.3 Irony and empathy erased

6.5 Unreliable narrator and translator-unconscious irony

6.5.1 Factual discrepancy

6.5.2 Attitudinal inconsistence

6.5.3 Ideological discordance

6.6 Conclusion

Conclusion

1. Seeing the point and hearing the voices

2. Towards a multidisciplinary and transnational framework

3. Final remarks

Author queries

Index

Index (Chinese).

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.