FIT FIT Literary & Creative Translation 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is the primary challenge in literary translation compared to technical translation?
- Preserving the author's voice, style, and aesthetic intent alongside meaning (Correct answer)
- Converting measurement units accurately across languages
- Maintaining consistent use of standardized terminology
- Ensuring numerical data is reproduced without error
Correct answer: Preserving the author's voice, style, and aesthetic intent alongside meaning
Literary translation requires the translator to recreate the author's unique voice and artistic choices, not just transfer factual content.
Question 2: What does 'foreignization' mean as a strategy in literary translation?
- Retaining elements of the source culture to expose the target reader to the foreign text (Correct answer)
- Replacing all foreign references with domestic equivalents for easier reading
- Translating only words with direct dictionary equivalents
- Avoiding any cultural references to keep the text neutral
Correct answer: Retaining elements of the source culture to expose the target reader to the foreign text
Foreignization, associated with Lawrence Venuti, preserves source-culture features rather than fully domesticating the text, making the reader aware of the translation's foreign origin.
Question 3: In poetry translation, what is the concept of 'semantic equivalence' often balanced against?
- Formal equivalence in meter, rhyme, and sound (Correct answer)
- Word-for-word literal accuracy in every line
- Omitting all figures of speech from the target text
- Translating only the title and first stanza
Correct answer: Formal equivalence in meter, rhyme, and sound
Poetry translators constantly balance preserving the literal meaning (semantic equivalence) with recreating rhythm, rhyme, and phonetic effects (formal equivalence).
Question 4: What is a 'cultural untranslatability' problem in literary translation?
- A source-language concept with no direct equivalent in the target language or culture (Correct answer)
- A passage that is too long to translate within a deadline
- A sentence where grammar rules differ between source and target languages
- A text that has already been translated by another translator
Correct answer: A source-language concept with no direct equivalent in the target language or culture
Cultural untranslatability occurs when a word or concept is so embedded in the source culture that no equivalent exists in the target language, requiring creative solutions like borrowing or explanation.
Question 5: How does a translator typically handle dialect or regional speech in literary works?
- By finding a target-language dialect or register that conveys a similar social or geographic identity (Correct answer)
- By standardizing all dialect to formal language in the translation
- By leaving all dialect passages in the original language untranslated
- By replacing dialect with technical jargon to signal difference
Correct answer: By finding a target-language dialect or register that conveys a similar social or geographic identity
Translators map source-language dialect onto a target-language equivalent that signals the same social, regional, or class distinctions to the target reader.
Question 6: What is the translator's 'invisibility' concept as discussed by Lawrence Venuti in literary translation?
- The tendency for fluent, domesticated translations to make readers forget the text was translated (Correct answer)
- The practice of not crediting the translator on the book cover
- A method of hiding cultural references inside footnotes
- The elimination of the author's original voice in the target text
Correct answer: The tendency for fluent, domesticated translations to make readers forget the text was translated
Venuti argues that dominant Anglo-American translation practices produce fluent, natural-sounding texts that make the translator's labor invisible, erasing signs of foreignness.
FIT FIT Literary & Creative Translation 1
What is the primary challenge in literary translation compared to technical translation?