Pseudotranslation

In literature, a pseudotranslation is a text written as if it had been translated from a foreign language, even though no foreign language original exists.

This article is about a literary device. For the software internationalization testing method, see Pseudolocalization.

History

The concept of a pseudotranslation was initially proposed by Israeli scholar Gideon Toury in Descriptive Translation Studies–and Beyond (1995).[1] The technique allows authors to provide more insight into the culture of the work's setting by presupposing that the reader is unfamiliar with the work's cultural setting, opening the work to a wider world audience.[2]

Writing a pseudotranslation involves using features that usually indicate to a reader that the text is a translation. As some translators have argued, pseudotranslations can be a way of publishing literature that is stylistically different or critical."[3] Scholars such as Gideon Toury also note that readers are more likely to accept texts that differ from the norm if they are culturally distant.[4]

Many works of science fiction and fantasy can be regarded as pseudotranslations from nonexistent languages. J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings explicitly claims to have been translated from the ancient languages of Middle-earth, while Gene Wolfe, in the afterword to its first volume, claims that The Book of the New Sun series is translated "from a language that has yet to achieve existence".

Examples
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

See also

References
  1. Toury, Gideon (1995). Descriptive Translation Studies - and beyond. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
  2. Rath, Brigitte (1 April 2014). "Pseudotranslation". State of the Art Report: The 2014 - 2015 Report on the State of the Discipline of Comparative Literature. American Comparative Literature Association.
  3. Cellier-Smart, Catharine (2012-11-12). "Pseudo-translations". A Smart Translator's Reunion. Retrieved 2016-11-14.
  4. "Gideon Toury: Enhancing Cultural Changes by Means of Fictitious Translations". www.tau.ac.il. Retrieved 2016-11-14.

Further reading
  • Gürçağlar, Şehnaz Tahir. (2010). "Scouting the Borders of Translation: Pseudotranslation, Concealed Translations and Authorship in Twentieth-Century Turkey," Translation Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 172–187.
  • McCall, Ian. (2006). "Translating the Pseudotranslated: Andreï Makine's La Fille d'un héros de l'Union soviétique," Forum for Modern Language Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 287–297.
  • Rambelli, Paolo. (2006) "Pseudotranslations, Authorship and Novelists in Eighteenth-Century Italy." In Translating Others. Ed. Theo Hermans. Manchester, UK: St. Jerome Publishing, pp. 181–193.
  • Kupsch-Losereit, Sigrid (2014) "Pseudotranslations in 18th century France". In: Transfiction. Research into the realities of translation fiction. Eds. Klaus Kaindl/ Karlheinz Spitzl. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 189–202.
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