The translator
Literary or performance artist?
This article proposes that in order to understand the nature of literary translation as an art form, we need to
complement existing approaches drawing on literary, linguistic and sociological theories with insights derived from performance
studies. As a way of exploring what the theorization of translation as performance art could contribute to our understanding of
literary translation, I map four basic tenets of performance as restored behavior (Schechner
1985) to two translators’ (Margaret Jull Costa and Peter Bush) accounts of their practice. The mapping is illustrated
with writings by and interviews with the translators, focusing on four points of contact: the unresolved dialectal tension between
self and other, the deliberate, rehearsed nature of decisions, the need for distance between original and performance/translation,
and the role of the audience.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Style as fingerprints
- Translator style from the perspective of literary stylistics
- Translator style from the perspective of cognitive stylistics and sociology
- Translation, performativity, performance
- In the translators’ words
- Conclusion
- Notes
-
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Cited by (1)
Cited by 1 other publications
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2023.
Investigating translation style in English translations of Chinese editorials and commentaries from the
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Perspectives 31:6
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