exoticism in translation

Exoticism in translation refers to using words or phrases which sound "exotic" in the translated language, because they are of foreign origin. the quality of being exotic; "he loved the exoticism of Egypt". However, most critics and scholars, especially in the West, see things differently and assume the position of moral gatekeepers. I knew there was some discretion in translating and it was more of an art than a science, but I didnt realize how much discretion is involved. Questions addressed include: Did Rembrandt really hire Van Vliet as his printmaker, like Rubens hired Vorster-man, Pontius and others? An exoticism is a word from a foreign language which denotes something (e.g. For When 'Lowdown Crook' Isn't Specific Enough. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. . Professor of Film Studies, Dr. It is worth emphasising that cultural translation shapes world cinema at every single stage. Galt, Rosalind and Karl, Schoonover (2010). Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English, Taylor does not always demonstrate successfully his stated aim: to uncover the social and historical context of, As a result, his argument is sometimes unfocused, his central interest in the relationship between, They are, rather, narrative agents whose actions move the stories forward and develop the authenticity and, I also met people who were fascinated by my ', Dance is a constant in any exotic plot, and is at the heart of operatic. The term world cinema has been coined in analogy to Goethes conceptualisation of Weltliteratur (world literature) by which he meant not only foreign literature, but also the reception of domestic literature abroad as well as his own literary translations (Birus, 2004). 297 0 obj Raise the Red Lantern Review. When I was studying at university in Germany (Germersheim), my professors often emphasized this point. Add exoticism to one of your lists below, or create a new one. 33. Keywords: modulation, naturalness, equivalence Introduction It has been understood by translators that translating a text is not just a matter of finding the correct words in the TL, and using the correct TL grammar. As exotic goods and materials become part of the domestic environment, global goods gain local meanings, and simultaneously bestow new layers of meaning on the material culture of the early modern Netherlands. (2000). Eine historische Vergegenwrtigung. Exoticism. Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exoticism. Literal translation. Dennison and Lim, 2006: 2; Nagib, Perriam and Dudrah, 2012: xix). An abundance of colors, sounds, smells, and tactile experiences promise to gratify the senses within an economy that gives free rein to consumption, unrestrained by political responsibility and ethical commitment to the real actors of exotic fantasies: that is, it disregards the role of disadvantaged people, coming mainly from third-world nations, who make a meager living from appearing in the dramatized fantasies staged in tropical holiday resorts and nightclubs. Eine historische Vergegenwrtigung. It has been deeply entrenched in the European imaginary of the Orient ever since Pierre Loti conflated exoticism and eroticism and his immensely popular novel Madame Chrysanthme (1887) inspired Giacomo Puccinis opera Madama Butterfly (1904) and served as a template of Asian femininity in the popular imagination of the West (cf. Ruth Fulton Benedict (18871948), originator of the configurational approach to culture, was a mature woman when she en, Culture areas are geographical territories in which characteristic culture patterns are recognizable through repeated associations of specific traits, Exoteric-Esoteric (Kenmitsu) Buddhism in Japan, Expanded Food Nutrition and Education Program, Expanding Educational Opportunities for the Masses, https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/exoticism, Transculturation and Religion: An Overview. It also applies to the various mechanisms of transnational film funding and co-production, circulation and distribution, since the selection procedures involved tend to privilege a particular type of global art cinema that promises to appeal to (metropolitan) cinephiles (cf. by Erik Hinterding and Jaco Rutgers, Rubens and the bird of paradise. And, to end with yet another disclaimer, I may have conveyed the impression that contemporary world cinema merely recycles the exotic iconography and narrative tropes of the past without actually innovating the aesthetic paradigm and its ideological trajectory. Painting natural knowledge in the early seventeenth century, The History of the Dutch and Flemish Art Collection of the Szpmvszeti Mzeum. Forsdick, Charles (2003). Khoo, Olivia (2007). Raise the Red Lantern is set in the 1920s and tells the story of Songlian (Gong Li), a nineteen-year-old girl who is forced by her stepmother to marry the much older Master Chen after her father dies and her family goes bankrupt. Out of the ordinary: ways of saying that something is unusual (2), Cambridge University Press & Assessment 2023. The visual pleasure afforded by exotic cinemas sumptuous style is arguably the chief vehicle that allows world cinema to travel and be understood, or misunderstood, as the case may be, by transnational audiences who are potentially disadvantaged by a hermeneutic deficit of culturally specific knowledge when trying to understand films from outside their own cultural sphere. endobj History 120. It adopts a cultural perspective that is firmly entrenched in the conventions and belief systems of Western civilization and therefore constructs the East as the archetypical location of otherness. Durham: Duke University Press. Nevertheless, these films also rely on pictorialism, spectacle and visual pleasure for their transnational appeal. Rubensbulletin V (2014), pp. Methodologically, this essay combines a close reading of the idealized representations of things in domestic spaces we encounter in paintings with an analysis of the materiality, design and historical trajectories of the things themselves. Ethnic Food Fetishism, Whiteness, and Nostalgia in Recent Film and Television. It really depends. However, the limited scope of this essay and its focus on developing a model of transnational reception precluded me from pursuing these other lines of argument. Definition of exoticism in the Definitions.net dictionary. 310 0 obj Learn more in the Cambridge English-Chinese simplified Dictionary. Changes in the Meaning and Reception of an Orientalising Fine Arts Theme in Europe and Hungary, Master Class: Northern European Art (1500-1700) from the Permanent Collection, 2018, CORPUS RUBENIANUM VERSUS REMBRANDT RESEARCH PROJECT. Since exoticism invariably spectacularises cultural difference, it is regularly censured for concealing the uneven power hierarchies that undergird colonialism and its ideological and aesthetic legacies by offering visual pleasure, the implication being that visual pleasure is something like an opiate that anaesthetises the spectators critical capacities, thereby precluding intellectual interrogation and critical distance. I seek to show that through vision and touch, and the proximity of objects to bodies in domestic environments, goods from all over the world become part of the material culture of the seventeenth-century Netherlands. B. Tauris, pp. 6276. a person, an institution, an animal, a plant etc.) Lost in Translation. To be sure, in addition to their visual allure, the exoticism of Raise the Red Lantern and several other of Zhangs films also rests on established narrative tropes, notably that of the exotic-erotic-enigmatic Asian woman, frequently represented as a concubine, geisha, prostitute or simply the suffering wife of a much older oppressive husband. Revisiting Exoticism: From Colonialism to Postcolonialism. Likewise, we only need to consider Apichatpong Weerasethakuls films, whose radical alterity makes them extremely enigmatic, if not utterly perplexing for global audiences, to appreciate that they lack two essential characteristics of exoticism: firstly, their extreme Otherness precludes domestication, that is, integration into a familiar system of aesthetic and conceptual reference points and, secondly, they are largely devoid of the visual and sensuous allure that is a hallmark of exotic cinema. Arguably the most dynamic site of cultural translation is the film festival circuit since it is here where the first contact in this cross-cultural encounter usually occurs and where global art cinemas meaning and artistic value is negotiated. London: Macmillan. An accurate translation In other words, the transnational dimension inherent in the concept of world cinema is constituted in the process of reception, as a film moves outside its own national sphere into another one. However, the relationship between realist and exoticist modes of representation is more complicated and they are not mutually exclusive. However, I did not fully identify what that means. 1997. exoticism noun [ U ] uk / zt..s.z m / us / z.t.s.z m / the quality of being unusual and exciting because of coming (or seeming to come) from far away, especially a tropical country the exoticism of the East Want to learn more? What particular qualities do films as diverse as Raise the Red Lantern, LOdeur de la papaye verte (The Scent of Green Papaya, Trn Anh Hng, France/Vietnam, 1993), Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate, Alfonso Arau, Mexico, 1992), Fa yeung nin wa (In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong/China, 2000), Three Seasons (Tony Bui, Vietnam/USA, 2000), Water (Deepa Mehta, Canada/India, 2007), The Assassin, Tanna (Martin Butler and Bentley Dean, Australia/Vanuatu, 2015) and El abrazo de la serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent, Ciro Guerra, Columbia/Venezuela/Argentina, 2015) possess to elicit the exotic gaze in the spectator? Situating World Cinema as a Theoretical Problem. 'Cataloguing Rubens and Rembrandt. Exoticism in translation refers to using words or phrases which sound exotic in the translated language, because they are of foreign origin. London and New York: Routledge. One of course can try to balance that. She regards fiction films such as Chen Kaiges Huang tu di (Yellow Earth, China, 1984) and Zhang Yimous award-winning Ju Dou (China/Japan, 1990) and Dahong Denglong Gaogao gua (Raise the Red Lantern, China/Hong Kong/Taiwan, 1991) as a new type of ethnography practiced by those who were previously ethnographized and who have, in the postcolonial age, taken up the active task of ethnographizing their own cultures (Chow, 1995: 180). Childs, Elizabeth C. (2013). In China, Raise the Red Lantern was initially banned and Chinese audiences preferred Zhangs visually less flamboyant Qiu Ju Da Guansi (The Story of Qiu Ju, China/Hong Kong, 1992) and Huo zhe (To Live, China/Hong Kong, 1994), both films about ordinary people and a shared collective past and present. %PDF-1.7 You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Literal translation is your straightforward word-for-word translation. Pratt, Mary Louise (1992). London: Routledge. In fact, as Charles Forsdick (2001: 21) has persuasively argued, the exotic gaze is a perspective from the other side, from outside and across geographical [or cultural] boundaries. It depends on the maintenance of boundaries, lest cultural difference and the sense of astonishment and wonder it evokes in the beholder, be preserved. Vanishing Paradise: Art and Exoticism in Colonial Tahiti, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Chuck Goudie House Hinsdale, Articles E