Zürich James Joyce Foundation
Workshop on specific translation issues:

TransWork

May 8 – 12

For once, the workshop will not consist of dispersive presentations, but investigate into how translators have handled intricate, advanced (Joycean0 problems and how those could be adequately dealt with. There are mainly four topics allotted to the four days of the full conference. The items to be looked at will be circulated well ahead of time.

1 "Mind Grammar", especially in interior monologue passages. How to deal with thoughts in progress, inchoative, not yet mediated, before they reach a stage of potential grammatical articulation? Translations tend to convert fleeting associations into reflection.
Samples to be taken from the early Bloom episodes.

2 Musical, sound effects (alliteration, assonance, rhyme, onomatopoeia)
Samples naturally from Sirens.

3 Errors, deviations, misunderstandings, lapsus …
Samples from various episodes, with emphasis on Eumaeus and its incongruities

4 Quotations, Echoes, Resonances, Distortions, Parodies
How to deal with (literary, cultural) precedents that may not exist in the target language? Samples from various episodes.

To make it clear: Participants will not have to conceive of an original new topic to present, but merely (!) to devote their ingenuity to the above issues and in particular the samples provided. What has in fact been done with the problematic issues, how would native readers understand the passages, what is the difference — and what could be done in the respective languages?

The only prepared talks are brief accounts of what opportunities the various target languages have to offer: what is conducive or else obstructive for the complex tasks at hand: such as gender, flexibility, word order, new formations, composites, word play, syntactical constrictions etc.

Naturally some general issues will be aired as well: domestication against alienation, "literal against free translation", makeshift devices like footnotes, etc.

Make sure to include "TransWork" in your responses so they will not go astray or be overlooked, and please mail to both of us.

If you think of likely participants please pass this on and spread the word.

Looking forward to an excellent attendance

Erika Mihálycsa erika.mihalycsa@gmail.com

Fritz Senn fritzsenn@mac.com