A study of english translations of greek cypriot poetry

Abstract

A Study of English Translations of Greek Cypriot Poetry is the first paper to venture an in-depth analysis of English translations of Greek Cypriot Poetry. The study is divided into three main sections. The first section (Chapter 2 and part of Chapter 3) is the summary of the major translation issues, presented here in binary form, such as translatability versus untranslatability, faithful versus unfaithful, and so on, and which establishes the groundwork for the analysis of the second section. The second section (Chapter 4) consists mainly of an in-depth analysis in the form of a comparative critique, carried out only on those translations which have parallel versions. These are studied from the point of view of equivalence. The analysis is based on the premise that wrong rendering even of a single word can sometimes hinder “dynamic equivalence,” that is, equivalence of similar effect on the TL reader and that at times it can even produce a discordant or out of context interpretation because of the resultant non-equivalence. For the purposes of the analysis, this part is divided into five subsections, loosely following Baker’s (1992) divisions. These are: non-equivalence at word level - where the focus is on single words; non-equivalence above word level - where the focus is widened to cover collocations, fixed expressions and idioms; grammatical non-equivalence - where the scope of reference covers areas, such as pronouns, tenses, and so on, as well as word order; pragmatic non-equivalence - which examines cases of disrupted coherence; formal non-equivalence - which deals with rhymed poetry only and approaches it from the aesthetic point of view. In each of these subsections, the cases of non-equivalence are placed into categories and each particular case of non-equivalence is compared with the other parallel version(s), discussed, defended or rejected, indicating the more successful rendition. The third section (Appendices 2, 3 and 4) comprises the first complete record of translated Greek Cypriot poetry into English, namely, a catalogue of all the Cypriot poets; the titles of their poems in translation; reference to all the translators of their poems; reference to the publications where these translations have been found; a list of poems that have more than one translation version. This has made possible the compilation of parallel versions and thereafter the comparative critique.