Study materials on translation and/or cultural studies

Translatedselves is a 2-year-old community of language lovers, translators, writers and cultural in-betweeners. We, sweetsouls from around the globe, come together on Instagram @translatedselves and on translatedselves.com to talk about languages & cultures.

This is one of our collective articles written by sweetsouls.

What study materials would you recommend on translation and/or cultural studies?

A good way to improve your ability to translate, or to better understand multiculturalism and multilingualism is to immerse yourself in the language and culture you want to learn about. This isn’t always possible. For many, the desire to travel and learn first-hand is out of reach either from a financial or practical aspect. This does not mean that they should give up their goals. There are materials available to help you learn from anywhere so that you are prepared to continue your growth when you are able to go and learn more in person.

Florencia, a student of literature from Chile who speaks Spanish and English says, “I have always thought that the best way of studying languages and translation is by talking and interacting with other people! That way you can learn not only what's on the books, but slang words and daily expressions, etc.” She continues by stating, “There is no downside of learning other languages. It helps you get rid of prejudices, expand your borders, make friends in every corner of the world, it also gives you a much bigger list of books to read!” Most people would agree that this is always a good thing. Communication is one of the most important things in all areas of life. Florencia says, “Being able to communicate with other people will always be good. It makes us better human beings, better to each other. And literature is a beautiful way of achieving this, poetry most of all because it comes from the heart. It makes you stand in other person's shoes and see what they see: a landscape, their family, war, how they perceive world problems, love, friendship, losing someone, even which food they like, and the list goes on.”

I'm from Chile. I'm currently studying Literature (third year), which is my passion. I'm very eager to learn more languages, as I'm only familiar with two (spanish and english). I love poetry and the way it develops so differently in many cultures, but so similarly at the same time. Thank you so much for creating this community and making everyone part of it!

Another member of TranslatedSelves, Lizabeth, offers a couple of suggestions for books. As for recommendations, “I recommend as study materials: George Steiner's After Babel which is enlightenment regardless of the language from which and into which we want to translate. I also recommend Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman.

Lizabeth

I'm an English literature student from Mexico and my aim is to be a translator of texts literary and technical. I believe neither literary nor technical translation can be said to be ‘more complicated’ or ‘more interesting’ than the other, and I enjoy both just the same. I love literature, particularly short stories and essays, and am obsessed with language. I enjoy reading dictionaries of all sorts just to see what I can find.

“Personally, I don’t learn much from teacher lectures, I usually learn new languages by making local friends.”

However, Mewded from Ethiopia who is studying e-commerce in China, says that he prefers to use non-traditional methods. He says, “Personally, I don’t learn much from teacher lectures, I usually learn new languages by making local friends.” He also recommends learning new languages by making friends, playing games (made for learning a specific language), using dictionaries, watching videos. He does not recommend using subtitles. Mewded speaks Arabic and Chinese.

Mewded

I claim that cultural unity help human being to develop good communication with others. Because we all live,study,work together. A unity in cultures and language benefit our own growth in life. Ethiopia is a best example for this concept, almost having 86 different cultures and languages.

Debra says: “One book that had a message that stuck with me for many years is Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, an Autobiography. While not a textbook, it helps one understand the changes we go through while acquiring an additional language. His journey began at a young age. I was nearly twenty when I began to be bilingual.”

Debra

I'm a bilingual author (English/Spanish), a translator, and a language tutor. I spent over a decade living in Venezuela, where I learned Spanish by living it and with some help from a dictionary and loving in-laws who did not speak a word of English.

Books mentioned above:

After Babel

(Oxford University Press, 1998) was originally published in 1975 and includes the following chapters: Understanding as Translation; Language and Gnosis; Word against Object; The Claims of Theory; The Hermeneutic Motion; Topologies of Culture

Amazon book page says: When it first appeared in 1975, After Babel created a sensation, quickly establishing itself as both a controversial and seminal study of literary theory. In the original edition, Steiner provided readers with the first systematic investigation since the eighteenth century of the phenomenology and processes of translation both inside and between languages. Taking issue with the principal emphasis of modern linguistics, he finds the root of the "Babel problem" in our deep instinct for privacy and territory, noting that every people has in its language a unique body of shared secrecy. With this provocative thesis he analyzes every aspect of translation from fundamental conditions of interpretation to the most intricate of linguistic constructions. For the long-awaited second edition, Steiner entirely revised the text, added new and expanded notes, and wrote a new preface setting the work in the present context of hermeneutics, poetics, and translation studies. This new edition brings the bibliography up to the present with substantially updated references, including much Russian and Eastern European material. Like the towering figures of Derrida, Lacan, and Foucault, Steiner's work is central to current literary thought. After Babel, Third Edition is essential reading for anyone hoping to understand the debates raging in the academy today.

Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman

Book chapters include: Authors, Translators, and Readers Today; Translating Cervantes; Translating Poetry; A Personal List of Important Translations

Available in print and e-book. Amazon book page says: Why Translation Matters argues for the cultural importance of translation and for a more encompassing and nuanced appreciation of the translator’s role. As the acclaimed translator Edith Grossman writes in her introduction, “My intention is to stimulate a new consideration of an area of literature that is too often ignored, misunderstood, or misrepresented.”

Monolingualism of the Other: or, The Prosthesis of Origin (Cultural Memory in the Present) by Jacques Derrida

A description on Amazon’s book page says: “I have but one language―yet that language is not mine.” This book intertwines theoretical reflection with historical and cultural particularity to enunciate, then analyze this conundrum in terms of the author’s own relationship to the French language. The book operates on three levels. At the first level, a theoretical inquiry investigates the relation between individuals and their “own” language. It also explores the structural limits, desires, and interdictions inherent in such “possession,” as well as the corporeal aspect of language (its accents, tones, and rhythms) and the question of the “countability” of languages (that is, their discreteness or factual givenness). At the second level, the author testifies to aspects of his acculturation as an Algerian Jew with respect to language acquisition, schooling, citizenship, and the dynamics of cultural-political exclusion and inclusion. At the third level, the book is comparative, drawing on statements from a wide range of figures, from the Moroccan Abdelkebir Khatibi to Franz Rosenzweig, Gershom Scholem, Hannah Arendt, and Emmanuel Levinas. Since one of the book’s central themes is the question of linguistic and cultural identity, its argument touches on several issues relevant to the current debates on multiculturalism. These issues include the implementation of colonialism in the schools, the tacit or explicit censorship that excludes other (indigenous) languages from serious critical consideration, the investment in an ideal of linguistic purity, and the problematics of translation. The author also reveals the complex interplay of psychological factors that invests the subject of identity with the desire to recover a “lost” language of origin and with the ambition to master the language of the colonizer.

British Cultural Identities 5th Edition by Mike Storry (Editor), Peter Childs (Editor)

The Amazon description on the book page: British Cultural Identities assesses the degree to which being British impinges on the identity of the many people who live in Britain, analysing contemporary British identity through the various and changing ways in which people who live in the UK position themselves and are positioned by their culture today.

Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, an Autobiography.

From the description on the Amazon book page: Hunger of Memory is the story of Mexican-American Richard Rodriguez, who begins his schooling in Sacramento, California, knowing just 50 words of English, and concludes his university studies in the stately quiet of the reading room of the British Museum.