Call For Papers
Concordia Discors vs. Discordia Concors
(International Journal for Researches into Comparative Literature, Contrastive Linguistics, Cross-Cultural and Translation Strategies)
no. 17-18 / 2022
INTERSEMIOTICITY, INTERGENERICITY, INTERMEDIALITY: FROM TRANSLATION TO DRAMATISATION, ADAPTATION, PERFORMANCE
Roman Jakobson’s On Linguistic Aspects of Translation (1959) is still a much quoted (re)source, above all for having introduced the concept of intersemioticity or transmutation as “the interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of non-verbal sign systems”. For the 17th and 18th issues of Concordia Discors vs. Discordia Concors, we propose a reflection on translation and adaptation as a passage, not only from verbal to non-verbal, but also from a genre to another, and also from a medium to another.
Whether we see intersemioticity, along with Aba-Carina Pârlog (2019) as a prism,or we consider it a metamorphosis or mutation, it is always reinvention, extension, addition, and not a simple repetition of an “original” text. Umberto Eco (2003) argues that intersemiotic translations or transmutations (in Jakobsonian terms) are nothing but adaptations, as they reshape previous texts due to their tendency to ‘say too much.’ Much like translations, adaptations are usually judged in terms of their fidelity to a prototext, even if a change of medium is involved. In keeping with the so-called archontic literature, which posits that texts based upon or referring to other texts are never simply derivative or subordinate, they do not retell or repeat a story; they rather build an archive that expands the textual world.
Intergenericity explores the translation potential of generic interactions and influences. Considering genre from a linguistic perspective, as a text type, spoken or written, but also, from a social perspective, as an “activity type” (Fairclough, 1992) closely connected with the subject positions that are socially determined, we focus on the relationship between authorial and lectorial genericity. In the latter part of the 19th century and the former of the 20th, novelists used to “dramatise” their fiction, either in order to protect it against unauthorised dramatisation or for much more than reasons of copyright (see Henry James’ Daisy Miller, Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent, or J. M. Barrie with his books featuring Peter Pan).
The process of self-adaptation is, as shown by Richard James Hand (1996), illuminating because it reveals much about the way these novelists saw their fiction as well as the broader perception of their culture.
Due to the fact that Jakobson’s concept of intersemiotic translation is limiting, as the source medium is traditionally a written text, intermediality came to definevarious interactions among media, dissociating the translation from its strictly linguistic meaning (Shober, 2010). According to Lars Elleström (2010), every medium is constituted of four necessary conditions or basic modalities: material, sensorial, spatiotemporal and semiotic, in such a way that even the apparently monomodal text is, in fact, multimodal. Consequently, as intermediality is “the result of constructed media borders being trespassed,’’ various signs may be part of various systems at the same time without losing their stability. We understand, therefore, intermedial translation both as the adaptation and transmission of a literary work through another medium, and as interactions amongotherdifferent media, such as, for instance, Amy Lowell’s poetic translation of Stravinsky’s music (Shober), or Marie Chouinard’s choreographical translation of Hieronymus Bosch’s painting The Garden of Earthly Delights (Montesi, 2021).
As Martha Dvořák (2012) claims, “text in the original etymological sense of textus(surface, material, base) signifying the concrete bottom or supporting part has mutated – mutated to an immaterial mental state, but also to other forms of material, other cultural media, transforming intertextuality to intergenericity, intersemioticity, or rather, intermediality”.
We kindly invite subsmissions in English, French, German, Italian or Spanish for the 17th and 18th issuesof the peer-reviewed academic journal Concordia Discors vs. Discordia Concors: Researches into Comparative Literature, Contrastive Linguistics, Cross-Cultural and Translation Strategies (http://condisdiscon.blogspot.com/2021) on one of the following subtopics (but not only):
- musicalisation of literature
- ekphrasis
- from picaresque to picturesque
- from the book to the screen
- from the book to the stage
- digital art
- movement as translation
- from stage/screen to page; text as anchorage
- the socio-cultural meaning of the material expression of signs; substances/surfaces of production (ink, gold, paint, etc./paper, canvas, wood, etc.)
- intermediality and interartiality
- adaptation as reverence or subversion towards source texts
- intermediality in graphic novels
- intersemiotic translation and the burden of historical and cultural context
A special section will be dedicated to interviews, reviews of publications, as well as research progress reports in adjacent thematic areas.
Interviews and reviews of recent books / plays / films / musical performances / art exhibitions are also accepted, which need not relate to the topic at issue.
Abstracts:
- should be submitted in English and not exceed 150 words
- should include 5 keywords, as well a short bionote in English (indicating author’s name, affiliation, academic / research areas of interst, email)
- should indicate the section preferred (Comparative Literature, Constrastive Linguistics, Cross-Cultural Strategies, Translation Strategies, Cross-Artistic Approaches, Reviews and Presentations)
Contributions in extenso should be sent no later than September 1st 2022 to the following email addresses:
Daniela Hăisan: danielahaisan@litere.usv.ro
Raluca Balaţchi: raluca.balatchi@usm.ro
Daniela-Maria Marţole: danielamartole@yahoo.com
REFERENCES
Byden, Diana; Martha Dvořák, eds., 2012, Crosstalk: Canadian and Global Imaginaries in Dialogue, Wilfred Laurier University Press
Brower, Reuben Arthur, ed., 1959, On Translation, Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature,vol. 23, Harvard University Press
Dvořák, Martha, 2012, “Rejoinders in a Planetary Dialogue”, in Diana Byden and Martha Dvořák, eds., Crosstalk: Canadian and Global Imaginaries in Dialogue, Wilfred Laurier University Press, pp.111-134
Eco, Umberto, 2003, Mouse or Rat. Translation as Negotiation, London: Orion Publishing Group
Elleström, Lars, ed., 2010, Media Borders. Multimodality and Intermediality, London, Palgrave, Macmillan
Fairclough, Norman, 1992, Discourse and Social Change, Cambridge: Polity Press
Hand, Richard James, 1996, Self-Adaptation: The Stage Dramatisation of Fiction by Novelists, PhD thesis, http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1912/
Jakobson, Roman, 1959, “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation”, in Brower, Reuben Arthur (ed), On translation, Harvard University Press, pp. 232-240
Montesi, Vanessa, 1921, “Translating Paintings into Dance: Marie Chouinard’s The Garden of Earthly Delights and the Challenges Posed to a Verbal-based Concept of Translation”, in The Journal of Specialised Translation, 35, pp. 166-185
Pârlog, Aba-Carina, 2019, Intersemiotic Translation: Linguistic and literary Multimodality, Springer International Publishing; Palgrave Pivot
Shober, Regina, 2010, “Translating Sounds: IntermedialExchanges in AmyLowell’s Stravinsky’s Three Pieces ‘Grotesque’ for String Quartet”, in Lars Elleström (ed) 2010, Media Borders, Multimodality and Intermediality, London, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 163- 175
Contact Info:
Dr. Daniela Haisan, Assoc. Prof., Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, RomaniaContact Email: danielahaisan@litere.usv.roURL: http://condisdiscon.blogspot.com/
