Abstract:
This qualitative study explores the correspondence of the clues of translation
miseries and splendours given by José Ortega y Gasset in his philosophical theory
of translation advocated in 1937 in the essay “The Misery and the Splendor of
Translation.” After matching with modern translation terminology and
metalanguages, the clues are set as rubric to identify the instances of translation
miseries and splendours in Kabir Chowdhury’s English translation of Bangla
novels. Five of such novels are purposively selected as samples. Textual analysis
method is applied to compare the sample novels with their source texts and to
bring out the instances where the translation is – in Ortega’s opinion – miserable
or splendid. The findings related to the correspondence of Ortega’s clues and their
application on Chowdhury’s translation are presented in three separate chapters.
It is identified that Ortega’s clues of translation miseries are the
translator’s presentation of the original author in usual expressions, and the
obstacles created by the internal form of any language. The clues of translation
splendours, on the other hand, are identified as the translator’s acts of capturing
the silence that exists in the ST, their transportation of exotic source text aspects
to the target text, and their recourse to ugly translation for making some source
text aspects clear. Ortega’s first clue of translation misery corresponds to the
modern concepts of stylistic loss and semantic loss and the second one
corresponds to the concepts of cultural and linguistic untranslatability. His clues
of splendour, on the other hand, correspond to the issues of expansion,
foreignisation and thick translation respectively.------
Description:
This Thesis is Submitted to the Institute of Bangladesh Studies (IBS) , University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi, Bangladesh for The Degree of Master of Philosophy (MPhil)
