Shifting characterizations of the ‘Common People’ in modern English retranslations of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War: a corpus-based analysis

Abstract

Little research has yet explored the impact of (re)translation on narrative characterization, that is, on the process through which the various actors depicted in a narrative are attributed particular traits and qualities. Moreover, the few studies that have been published on this topic are either rather more anecdotal than systematic, or their focus is primarily on the losses in character information that inevitably occur when a narrative is retold for a new audience in a new linguistic context. They do not explore how the translator's own background knowledge and ideological beliefs might affect the characterization process for readers of their target-language text. Consequently, this paper seeks to make two contributions to the field: first, it presents a corpus-based methodology developed as part of the Genealogies of Knowledge project for the comparative analysis of characterization patterns in multiple retranslations of a single source text. Such an approach is valuable, it is argued, because it can enhance our ability to engage in a more systematic manner with the accumulation of characterization cues spread throughout a narrative. Second, the paper seeks to move discussions of the effects of translation on narrative characterization away from a paradigm of loss, deficiency and failure, promoting instead a perspective which embraces the productive role translators often play in reconfiguring the countless narratives through which we come to know, imagine and make sense of the past, our present and imagined futures. The potential of this methodology and theoretical standpoint is illustrated through a case study exploring changes in the characterization of 'the common people' in two Englishlanguage versions of classical Greek historian Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, the first produced by Samuel Bloomfield in 1829 and the second by Steven Lattimore in 1998. Particular attention is paid to the referring expressions used by each translator-such as the multitude vs. the common people-as well as the specific attributes assigned to this narrative actor. In this way, the study attempts to gain deeper insight into the ways in which these translations reflect important shifts in attitudes within key political debates concerning the benefits and dangers of democracy.

Hippocrates transformed: crafting a Hippocratic discourse of medical semiotics in English, 1850–1930

“…Received: 11 December 2019; Accepted: 10 June 2020; Notes 1 Along similar lines, the Genealogies of Knowledge English print subcorpus has been used to understand the reception of Greek political ideas in modern English translations of ancient Greek authors as in part a product of the social, political, and cultural conditions of Britain in the 19th century (Jones, 2019a(Jones, , 2019b). 2 Foucault (1984a) provides clearest exposition of the principle assumptions, import, and ramifications of genealogy as an approach to the study of truth, moral value, and the human subject.…”

“…In this paper, I shall analyse data relating to the former in order to document how Hippocrates translators activate particular 19th-century medical categories and vocabularies to construct a Hippocratic semiotic theory by translating key texts in the Hippocratic corpus. 1 The study is, therefore, genealogical, in line with the loose sense the Genealogies of Knowledge project assigns the term in their publications (Jones, 2019a(Jones, , 2019bKarimullah, 2020a;Baker, 2020). In the social sciences and humanities genealogy is typically associated with Michel Foucault.…”

“…Rather than denoting a specific methodology, saying that these studies are genealogical is simply to say that they share a set of assumptions about history, truth, the human subject, the event, knowledge, and discourse. Unlike Foucault, however, our research is aimed at revealing how translation plays a significant but understudied role in the evolution of political concepts in time and across cultures (Baker, 2020;Karimullah, 2020aKarimullah, , 2020bJones, 2019aJones, , 2019b. This study is genealogical in the sense that it traces the emergence of a Hippocratic medical discourse in English in the 19th century, while recognising that the emergence of the relations between body, knowledge, and illness this ancient discourse propounds are given a modern inflection by translation.…”

From “Within” to “Beyond” in interpreting studies

“…A number of interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary studies bearing traces of this outward turn in translation studies include Brownlie's (2021) article that focuses on the role of languaging, translanguaging and discursive cross-culturing as resources for the empowerment of Congolese women, Marais (2014;'s articles exploring the relationship between translation and development, and Todorova's (2018) study that explores the processes of translation and localization relating to civil society in the Southeast Europe setting, drawing specifically on experiences of civil society development in Macedonia. Similar interdisciplinary studies that broadly fall within this trend in translation studies also include various articles (Baker 2020;Buts 2020;Jones 2019;Karimullah 2020;Pérez-González 2020) that are part of the larger Genealogies of Knowledge project led by the University of Manchester. Well aligned with the trend of digital humanities, these articles have addressed the vital and complex role that translation and other forms of mediation play in guiding our understanding of key aspects of social and political life from various perspectives.…”