Anglophoner Tag is an annual event for German–English and English–German translators and interpreters that brings together members of several different professional associations. This year, it was the ITI German Network’s turn to host. The beautiful city of Chester in north-west England was chosen as the location for a one-day workshop on the theme “Food for thought”. The programme also included various social events throughout the weekend, such as a cheese-tasting session and a tour of the city (neither of which I attended, unfortunately). I only dabble occasionally in food-themed translations, but I’d heard good things about previous editions of the event, so I took the train up from Cardiff to join around 20 other translators at the workshop, which was held at Chester Racecourse.
No fewer than four different talks were packed into the first half of the day. This format with several short talks worked well as it ensured variety and prevented things from dragging. The first speaker was Reiner Heard from ATICOM, whose talk “Moving away from traditional fare” was only tangentially connected to the topic of food. He presented a pithy outline of the current state of play in the translation market and prospects for the future, especially with a view to the rise in machine translation. He expects that MT will lead to a stronger divide between mass and premium translation markets, with poorly paid post-editing of machine translation in the former and more specialist, creative translation in the latter (perhaps with the role of the translator overlapping increasingly with the work of an editor, journalist or languages consultant). There was some discussion afterwards about the relevance of international standards for translators, and different models of charging: per word vs per hour vs project rates. Reiner drew attention to FIT Position Statements on some of the topics that came up.
The second talk was by fellow ITI GerNet and ITI Cymru Wales member Gaby Cablitz, who presented her research on Erich Scheurmann’s Der Papalagi, a work published in German in 1920 that purports to be a faithful translation of a Samoan chief’s critique of European civilisation, though in fact the text is a fake written by Scheurmann himself. Gaby discussed how Der Papalagi is steeped in racist tropes of the “noble savage” and Scheurmann’s own proto-fascist ideology, and questioned the reasons for its continuing popularity even among mainstream readers and left-wing countercultures (astonishingly, to this day several German education ministries include it on their recommended reading lists for young people). Finally, she compared two different English translations of the text and analysed how the translators’ own ideological backgrounds influenced their translation choices and strategies.
Gaby’s talk wasn’t on the topic of food, but it did lead neatly into the next two talks, which also discussed issues relating to cultural values and contexts – and this time with explicit reference to food. In her presentation “Seelenfutter aus dem Topf”, Regina Simmes from the BDÜ traced the history of the German term “Seelenfutter”, whose usage corresponds to the English “comfort food” but in fact derives from “soul food”, a concept developed by African Americans in the 1960s. Regina discussed how food is bound up with ideas of identity, home and childhood and values such as health and purity. For translators, this is reflected in the wealth of linguistic and cultural associations they have to tap into when writing about food. Beth Skinner from GerNet, meanwhile, discussed a fascinating blog project undertaken by her sister: a culinary tour of the world in 26 dishes, one dish from a different country for each letter of the alphabet: A for Australia, B for Burkina Faso, etc. (sadly, the blog only got as far as Vietnam, but X would have been Xiamen in China). Both Beth and her sister are linguists, and the talk was peppered with intriguing language-themed titbits: for example, the Cambodian phrase equivalent to “Let’s eat!” literally means “Let’s eat rice!” (since rice is served there with almost every meal), and the word “vindaloo” derives from Portuguese “vin d’alho”.
Her talk put us perfectly in the mood for a delicious lunch, which was followed by two rather different presentations. Firstly, Renate Ray-Klößmann presented a short history of crosswords, and then we (almost) completed a food-and-translation-themed crossword as a group (e.g. “This coil is helpful when unwound by British linguists” – “CIOL”; “Crush it or leave it” – “Ice”). There was then a “translation slam”. GerNet’s Jean Darvill and Matthew Popplewell presented their English translations of “Hardcore-Veganerin geht auf Gülle-Bauern”, in which (depending on the translation) a vegan harangued, laid into or verbally abused a farmer who was fertilising his field with slurry, while in the other direction Michaela Pschierer-Barnfather from GerNet and Julia Frenzel from the BDÜ presented translations of Jay Rayner’s rant about chutney – respectively headlined “Chutneys – herrlich mit Käse, ausgezeichnet im Eintopf – aber nicht nicht jeden Tag” and “Chutney schmeckt hervorragend zu Käse und verleiht Eintöpfen eine besondere Würze, doch was zu viel ist, ist zu viel”. Translation slams are an increasingly popular format for translation events (I’m taking part in one myself in two weeks’ time in Cardiff). They’re a great chance not just to compare and admire different translation styles and solutions, but also to discuss and explain the thought processes behind certain choices. Discussion points here included whether to anglicise the pseudonymous “Farmer Harms” to “Farmer Phil”, whether the German and English texts contained mistakes (“sie” instead of “es” in reference to “Grundwasser”; “mottled” instead of “motley” in reference to “mottled crop”) and how on earth to translate “tyranny of the glut” into English.
All in all, a very pleasant and interesting day with colleagues old and new. Many thanks to Cherry and Michaela from GerNet for all the behind-the-scenes organising to make the day run so smoothly. Next year’s edition will be hosted by the CIOL German Society in Greifswald on 16 June 2018, with the theme “Translating the Arts – The Art of Translation” (registration will open in January). I’ve already marked the date in my calendar!
The second talk was by fellow ITI GerNet and ITI Cymru Wales member Gaby Cablitz, who presented her research on Erich Scheurmann’s Der Papalagi, a work published in German in 1920 that purports to be a faithful translation of a Samoan chief’s critique of European civilisation, though in fact the text is a fake written by Scheurmann himself. Gaby discussed how Der Papalagi is steeped in racist tropes of the “noble savage” and Scheurmann’s own proto-fascist ideology, and questioned the reasons for its continuing popularity even among mainstream readers and left-wing countercultures (astonishingly, to this day several German education ministries include it on their recommended reading lists for young people). Finally, she compared two different English translations of the text and analysed how the translators’ own ideological backgrounds influenced their translation choices and strategies.
Gaby’s talk wasn’t on the topic of food, but it did lead neatly into the next two talks, which also discussed issues relating to cultural values and contexts – and this time with explicit reference to food. In her presentation “Seelenfutter aus dem Topf”, Regina Simmes from the BDÜ traced the history of the German term “Seelenfutter”, whose usage corresponds to the English “comfort food” but in fact derives from “soul food”, a concept developed by African Americans in the 1960s. Regina discussed how food is bound up with ideas of identity, home and childhood and values such as health and purity. For translators, this is reflected in the wealth of linguistic and cultural associations they have to tap into when writing about food. Beth Skinner from GerNet, meanwhile, discussed a fascinating blog project undertaken by her sister: a culinary tour of the world in 26 dishes, one dish from a different country for each letter of the alphabet: A for Australia, B for Burkina Faso, etc. (sadly, the blog only got as far as Vietnam, but X would have been Xiamen in China). Both Beth and her sister are linguists, and the talk was peppered with intriguing language-themed titbits: for example, the Cambodian phrase equivalent to “Let’s eat!” literally means “Let’s eat rice!” (since rice is served there with almost every meal), and the word “vindaloo” derives from Portuguese “vin d’alho”.
Her talk put us perfectly in the mood for a delicious lunch, which was followed by two rather different presentations. Firstly, Renate Ray-Klößmann presented a short history of crosswords, and then we (almost) completed a food-and-translation-themed crossword as a group (e.g. “This coil is helpful when unwound by British linguists” – “CIOL”; “Crush it or leave it” – “Ice”). There was then a “translation slam”. GerNet’s Jean Darvill and Matthew Popplewell presented their English translations of “Hardcore-Veganerin geht auf Gülle-Bauern”, in which (depending on the translation) a vegan harangued, laid into or verbally abused a farmer who was fertilising his field with slurry, while in the other direction Michaela Pschierer-Barnfather from GerNet and Julia Frenzel from the BDÜ presented translations of Jay Rayner’s rant about chutney – respectively headlined “Chutneys – herrlich mit Käse, ausgezeichnet im Eintopf – aber nicht nicht jeden Tag” and “Chutney schmeckt hervorragend zu Käse und verleiht Eintöpfen eine besondere Würze, doch was zu viel ist, ist zu viel”. Translation slams are an increasingly popular format for translation events (I’m taking part in one myself in two weeks’ time in Cardiff). They’re a great chance not just to compare and admire different translation styles and solutions, but also to discuss and explain the thought processes behind certain choices. Discussion points here included whether to anglicise the pseudonymous “Farmer Harms” to “Farmer Phil”, whether the German and English texts contained mistakes (“sie” instead of “es” in reference to “Grundwasser”; “mottled” instead of “motley” in reference to “mottled crop”) and how on earth to translate “tyranny of the glut” into English.
All in all, a very pleasant and interesting day with colleagues old and new. Many thanks to Cherry and Michaela from GerNet for all the behind-the-scenes organising to make the day run so smoothly. Next year’s edition will be hosted by the CIOL German Society in Greifswald on 16 June 2018, with the theme “Translating the Arts – The Art of Translation” (registration will open in January). I’ve already marked the date in my calendar!
RSS Feed
