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Research Article
Chinese-English Translation of Curse Words in A Dream of Red Mansions: Literal Versus Free Translation
Yang Chen*
Issue:
Volume 12, Issue 3, June 2024
Pages:
34-41
Received:
16 April 2024
Accepted:
6 May 2024
Published:
17 May 2024
Abstract: This research paper delves into the translation strategies for curse words from Chinese to English within the context of literary works, specifically focusing on "A Dream of Red Mansions," a classic Chinese novel. The study acknowledges the cultural aversion to curse words due to their offensive nature and association with negative emotions. However, it emphasizes the importance of these words in literature, where they contribute to the authenticity and expressiveness of the text. The paper is structured into three main sections. The first section provides a comparative analysis of curse words in English and Chinese, highlighting their common offensive traits and the cultural nuances that differentiate their usage. The second section presents a detailed examination of various translation strategies applied to curse words in the novel, including literal translation and free translation. The third section discusses the challenges translators face when bridging cultural barriers and offers recommendations for achieving faithful and expressive translations. The study underscores that curse words extend beyond their everyday negative connotations and are integral to the literary expression. It concludes that translators must possess a deep understanding of both the source and target languages' cultural contexts to effectively translate curse words. The recommended approach involves understanding the literal and extended meanings of curse words, considering the context, and employing a combination of literal and free translation strategies to maintain the essence and emotional impact of the original text.
Abstract: This research paper delves into the translation strategies for curse words from Chinese to English within the context of literary works, specifically focusing on "A Dream of Red Mansions," a classic Chinese novel. The study acknowledges the cultural aversion to curse words due to their offensive nature and association with negative emotions. Howeve...
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Research Article
Narrating Violence and Its Attendant to Trauma in Immaculée Ilibagiza’s Left to Tell
Abimbola Afeyisetan Ayo-Afolayan*,
Emmanuel Babatunde Omobowale
Issue:
Volume 12, Issue 3, June 2024
Pages:
42-51
Received:
21 April 2024
Accepted:
6 May 2024
Published:
24 May 2024
Abstract: The Rwanda genocide has spawned a great deal of new literary works that draw inspiration from its experience. Specifically, over the last three decades, violence and trauma are vital contributing thematic focuses in Rwandan post genocide literary works. This study was therefore designed to examine the representations of the experiences of the victims of the genocide in order to establish how violence induces trauma in the characters. Postcolonial theory and trauma were adopted as the framework basically to examine the challenges of violence perpetuated by the state against her citizens, as well as interrogate the traumatic state of the characters, while interpretive design was used for critical analysis of the text. Immaculée Ilibagiza’s Left to Tell inscribes different traumatic situations such as bereavement, grief, psychological dislocation, and physical threat to life, as influenced by interpersonal and collective violence to describe her experiences and that of other victims as they journey in isolation and silence as the perpetrators of the genocide lurk around their protector’s residence. The writer exposes the dangers of socio-political violence. This prose narrative helps to unburden the writer’s pains while helping others to have a grasp of the challenges Rwandans faced during the genocide. This study establishes the dangers of bad governance, the harsh realities of war and the intertwined relationship between violence and trauma.
Abstract: The Rwanda genocide has spawned a great deal of new literary works that draw inspiration from its experience. Specifically, over the last three decades, violence and trauma are vital contributing thematic focuses in Rwandan post genocide literary works. This study was therefore designed to examine the representations of the experiences of the victi...
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Research Article
In Search of the "Other" into the Night: A Study of the Double in a Polyphonic Perspective
Ana Lúcia Macedo Novroth*
Issue:
Volume 12, Issue 3, June 2024
Pages:
52-68
Received:
16 January 2024
Accepted:
2 February 2024
Published:
30 May 2024
Abstract: From the perspective of psychology, the individual becomes conscious of or rethinks about themselves in the relationship with their double, represented artistically through conflicts that constitute the human psyche. From the perspective of the philosophy of language, especially the Russian scholar Mikhail Bakhtin, the double consists of the fear of others, that is, the image others make of the subject. Whichever the perspective adopted is, the literary work, as it represents the man and his world, provides an effective means of understanding the subject’s conflicts and existential and identity crises evidenced in the discourses registered in the aesthetic object. This paper intends to analyze how duplicity-understood here as multiplied consciousness-takes place among characters in the narrative of Night, by the Brazilian author Erico Verissimo, in which the duplicated individual is the sign of a fragmented self. The aim is to examine which enunciative-discursive positions the protagonist assumes in the narrative to emphasize the duplicity of the subject from a polyphonic perspective; that is, by the biases of philosophy, psychology, and psychoanalysis and philosophy of language. As theoretical support for the examination of the double, we invite authors who navigate through philosophy, such as Clément Rosset; psychology and psychoanalysis, such as Otto Rank, Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, and C. F. Keppler; and, in the field of philosophy of language, Mikhail M. Bakhtin. Although the theorists adopt different views in re-examining the double, the approach is possible given that most admit certain correlations regarding the subject of otherness.
Abstract: From the perspective of psychology, the individual becomes conscious of or rethinks about themselves in the relationship with their double, represented artistically through conflicts that constitute the human psyche. From the perspective of the philosophy of language, especially the Russian scholar Mikhail Bakhtin, the double consists of the fear o...
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Research Article
The Indeterminate Palimpsest of the Arabian Nights and Its Unlimited Mirror Effects
El Mostafa Chadli*
Issue:
Volume 12, Issue 3, June 2024
Pages:
69-79
Received:
6 April 2024
Accepted:
7 May 2024
Published:
30 May 2024
Abstract: The text of the Thousand and One Nights has been the stuff of dreams for generations, throughout the Arab and non-Arab Orient, and since the XVIIIe century throughout Western Europe, thanks to L. Galland's translation, based on a popular Egyptian edition. Since then, there have been countless translations and compilations of a legendary text that has no known authors, and those who assume it are, ironically, only copyists, compilers or translators. This is why it is presented as a palimpsest whose sources must be unraveled, authenticated versions established and the mirror effects of the stories that make it up analyzed. This is what we shall attempt to demonstrate in this study, based on the critical corpus duly established by R. Khawam. This study is divided into four successive stages: The fate of the Thousand and One Nights text, the question of manuscript and/or printed sources, an examination of the French corpora of Galland, Mardrus and Khawam, the indeterminacy of the archi-text or palimpsest, and finally the singularity of Khawam's corpus.
Abstract: The text of the Thousand and One Nights has been the stuff of dreams for generations, throughout the Arab and non-Arab Orient, and since the XVIIIe century throughout Western Europe, thanks to L. Galland's translation, based on a popular Egyptian edition. Since then, there have been countless translations and compilations of a legendary text that h...
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Research Article
The Truth and the Pain: A Reading of Edouard Kayihura’s Inside the Hotel Rwanda and Marie Béatrice Umutesi’s Surviving the Slaughter
Abimbola Afeyisetan Ayo-Afolayan*
Issue:
Volume 12, Issue 3, June 2024
Pages:
80-87
Received:
14 May 2024
Accepted:
5 June 2024
Published:
21 June 2024
Abstract: Literary realism focuses on everyday people, issues, characters, settings and situations that are real. Some writers engage realism to document their real-life experiences. The readers as well tend to gain access to real life events as vivid as the writers can recollect them. Fictitious approaches are avoided completely in these narrations. This is done to ensure that the readers can identify with the stories being narrated. Hence, the 1994 genocide has been the major focus of contemporary Rwanda prose narratives. They project the experiences of the people before, during and after the genocide. Also, some authors document their experiences as suggested by their therapists, because it usually helps as one of the coping mechanisms for trauma. This study delves into the analysis of two post-genocide prose narratives. It adopts the use of postcolonial and trauma theories as the tools for conceptualizing, understanding and interpretation of these prose narratives. Marie Béatrice Umutesi’s Surviving the Slaughter: The ordeal of a Rwandan Refugee in Zaire and Edouard Kayihura’s Inside the Hotel Rwanda: The Surprising True Story and Why It Matters Today are autobiographies, they depict the causes of the genocide, the outcomes, specifically on the victims and hopefully the solutions. Edouard Kayihura suffers harrowing experiences of perpetual fear, oppression and extortion inside the Hotel des Mille Collines, this is his own truth, debunking the inaccuracies of the movie Hotel Rwanda. While, Marie Béatrice Umutesi, a Hutu woman witnesses and experiences inexplicable brutality and hardship. She endures the pains as she journeys towards safety. This study interrogates the contributions of political hegemony and identity crises to varying degrees of trauma and explains that the experiences and pains of these writers are factual. It also establishes that these prose narratives serve dual purposes of correcting a false claim and projecting the pain of a Hutu woman, a unique diversion from the popular focus on the Tutsis.
Abstract: Literary realism focuses on everyday people, issues, characters, settings and situations that are real. Some writers engage realism to document their real-life experiences. The readers as well tend to gain access to real life events as vivid as the writers can recollect them. Fictitious approaches are avoided completely in these narrations. This is...
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