I have just spent the past five minutes flicking through the inaugural issue of translation, a “new international peer-reviewed journal”.
Flicking through, despite hopes of reading it through from cover to cover. The warning signs were there in the introduction: “The journal – a collaborative initiative of the Nida School of Translation Studies – takes as its main mission the collection and representation of the ways in which translation as a fundamental element of culture transforms our contemporary world.”
For a moment I wondered if I was still reading the same dry government report on forestry and climate change from this morning. And that was before I got to the “rhizomatic patterns”, “transdisplinary fashion”, “and open intersemiotic space”. As introductions go, I confess I found it all rather off-putting.
I have a Master’s degree in modern and medieval languages from Cambridge University and I’m still not entirely sure what “intersemiotic space” is. But what I do know is that I really don’t want to find out. I’ve had enough of academic writing like this, whatever the subject. For the time being, I find blogs to be so much more interesting and accessible on the subject of translation. There is so much to say. Let’s start saying some of it in terms people want to read.
Literary Translation in Québec 