Cover not available
Article published In:
Target
Vol. 22:1 (2010) ► pp.22–39

Exophony and literary translation

What it means for the translator when a writer adopts a new language

 | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
When writers of literary prose adopt a new language—a phenomenon known as exophony—this often leads them to mould the new language until it becomes suitable for their purposes, in a manner analogous to the strategies of appropriation observed in post-colonial literatures (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin 1989). This process often results in a defamiliarisation of the new language through stylistic innovation, which, in turn, has implications for the translation of these texts. This article, influenced by Berman’s ‘analytique négative’ (1985), proposes a series of guidelines for the translation of exophonic texts and illustrates these with examples taken from German exophonic prose texts by Franco Biondi, Emine Sevgi Özdamar and Yoko Tawada.
Keywords: exophony, immigrant writing, migrant writing, stylistics, literary translation, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Franco Biondi, Yoko Tawada, post-war Germany
Article outline
  • 1.Understanding exophony
  • 2.Translating the German exophonic text
    • 2.1The creativity of the exophonic writer should not be attributed solely to a process of literal translation from the mother tongue
    • 2.2Seeming ungrammaticalities in exophonic texts should not immediately be attributed to the writer’s imperfect command of his or her adopted language
    • 2.3The translator should not be tempted to bridge the “metonymic gap” in the exophonic text
    • 2.4The translator should be aware that the exophonic writer may push his or her adopted language beyond its communicative function
  • 3.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 July 2010
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.22.1.03wri
References (37)
References
Arndt, Susan, Dirk Naguschewski and Robert Stockhammer. 2007. Exophonie. Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos.Google Scholar
Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. 1989/2002. The Empire Writes Back, 2nd edn. London: Routledge.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bayley, John. 1988. “Not Afraid of Sounding Major”. New York Times, 27 November.Google Scholar
Berman, Antoine. 1985. “La traduction comme épreuve de l’étranger”. Texte 41. 67–81.Google Scholar
Biondi, Franco. 1979. nicht nur gastarbeiterdeutsch. Gedichte. Self-published.Google Scholar
. 1995. “Über Obrigkeitsdeutsch und Pluralität in der Sprache”. Tagungsprotokoll der Evangelischen Akademie Iserlohn 61. 18–23.Google Scholar
. 1997. In deutschen Küchen. Frankfurt am Main: Brandes & Apsel.Google Scholar
Biondi, Franco and Schami Rafik. 1981. “Literatur der Betroffenheit: Bemerkungen zur Gastarbeiterliteratur”. Christian Schaffernicht, ed. Zu Hause in der Fremde: Ein bundesdeutsches Ausländer-Lesebuch. Fischerhude: Atelier im Bauernhaus, 1981. 124–136.Google Scholar
Bischoff, Detlef and Werner Teubner. 1990. Zwischen Einbürgerung und Rückkehr: Ausländerpolitik und Ausländerrecht der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Berlin: Hitit.Google Scholar
Boa, Elizabeth. 2006. “Özdamar’s Autobiographical Fictions: Trans-National Identity and Literary Form”. German Life and Letters 59: 4. 526–539.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boase-Beier, Jean. 2006. Stylistic Approaches to Translation. Manchester: St. Jerome. [Translation Theories Explored, 10.]Google Scholar
Brodsky, Joseph. 2000. Collected Poems in English. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Dayıoğlu-Yücel, Yasemin. 2005. Von der Gastarbeit zur Identitätsarbeit. Integritätsverhandlungen in türkischen-deutschen Texten von Şenocak, Özdamar, Ağaoğlu und der Online-Community vaybee! Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Göttingen. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Durrell, Martin. 2002. Hammer’s German Grammar and Usage, 4th edn. London: Hodder Arnold.Google Scholar
Ghaussy, Sohelia. 1999. “Das Vaterland verlassen: Nomadic Language and “Feminine Writing” in Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s Das Leben ist eine Karawanserei”. German Quarterly 72:1. 1–16.Google Scholar
Horrocks, David and Eva Kolinsky, eds. 1996. Turkish Culture in German Society Today. Oxford: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Konuk, Kader. 1997. “ Das Leben ist eine Karawanserei: Heim-at bei Emine Sevgi Özdamar”. Gisela Ecker, ed. Kein Land in Sicht: Heimat-weiblich? München: Fink, 1997. 143–157.Google Scholar
Kotsaftis, Maria. 2001. “Fighting Writing: The Unruly Literary Stiefkind Franco Biondi”. The German Quarterly 74:1. 67–79.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kraenzle, Christina. 2004. Mobility, space and subjectivity: Yoko Tawada and German-language transnational literature. PhD diss., University of Toronto, Canada.Google Scholar
Lecercle, Jean-Jacques. 1990. The Violence of Language. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ortega, Julio. 1988. “Exchange System in One Hundred Years of Solitude.” Julio Ortega, ed. Gabriel García Márquez and the Powers of Fiction, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988. 1–16.Google Scholar
Özdamar, Emine Sevgi (1992/1994) Das Leben ist eine Karawanserei. Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch.Google Scholar
Özdemir, Cem. 1999. Currywurst und Döner: Integration in Deutschland. Bergisch Gladbach: Gustav Lübbe.Google Scholar
Reeg, Ulrike. 1995. “Zwischen Italien und Deutschland. Die Vermittlung von ‘Raum’ und ‘Zeit’ in den neueren Werken italienischer Autorinnen und Autoren in Deutschland”. Caroline Lüderssen and Salvatore A. Sanna, eds. Letteratura de-centrata. Italienische Autorinnen und Autoren in Deutschland. Frankfurt am Main: Moritz Diesterweg, 1995. 27–43.Google Scholar
Rushdie, Salman. 1991. Imaginary Homelands. Essays and Criticism 1981–91. London: Granta.Google Scholar
Scott, Clive. 2000. Translating Baudelaire. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.Google Scholar
Sofronieva, Tzveta. 2009. “Korrespondenz mit Kappus”. Manuskripte 1851. 105–114.Google Scholar
Stockwell, Peter. 2000. “Sur(real) Stylistics: From Text to Contextualizing”. Tony Bex and Michael Burke and Peter Stockwell, eds. Contextualized Stylistics. Rodopi: Amsterdam, 2000. 15–38.Google Scholar
Storm, Hiroko. 2003. A Handbook of Japanese Grammar. München: LINCOM.Google Scholar
Tawada, Yoko. 1996. Talisman. Tübingen: Konkursbuchverlag Claudia Gehrke.Google Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility. London: Routledge.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1998. The Scandals of Translation. London: Routledge.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Von Flotow, Luise. 2000. “Life is a Caravanserai: Translating Translated Marginality, a Turkish-German Zwittertext in English”. Meta 45:1. 65–72.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Von Saalfeld, Lerke. 1998. Ich habe eine fremde Sprache gewählt. Gerlingen: Bleicher.Google Scholar
Wright, Chantal. 2006. “Foreignising German, Foreignising Translation. Style in Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s Das Leben ist eine Karawanserei and Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn”. Nigel Armstrong and Federico Federici, eds. Translating Voices, Translating Regions. Roma: Aracne, 2006. 271–286.Google Scholar
. 2008a. “ ‘Bringt Poesie in unsere Städte!’ Obrigkeitsdeutsch and Exophonic Literature”. Kakanien Revisited, 24 June. [URL] (accessed February 24, 2010).Google Scholar
. 2008b. “Writing in the ‘grey zone’: Exophonic literature in contemporary Germany”. GfL—German as a Foreign Language 3:2008. 26–42. [URL] (accessed February 24, 2010).Google Scholar
Cited by (10)

Cited by ten other publications

Acosta, Juan Carlos
2023. Salomé de Oscar Wilde. REVELL - REVISTA DE ESTUDOS LITERÁRIOS DA UEMS 3:33 ► pp. 155 ff. DOI logo
Alonso Alonso, María
2023. British-LatinX writers: Self-representation of the new Latin American diaspora in the UK. Cultural Dynamics 35:3 ► pp. 177 ff. DOI logo
Bergantino, Andrea
2023. Translators and identity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s transfiction. Perspectives 31:5 ► pp. 935 ff. DOI logo
Espinosa Ruiz, Angela
2021. Барбара Квапіш: лодзінская экзафаністка з падляскім сэрцам. Acta Albaruthenica ► pp. 81 ff. DOI logo
Li, Shuangyi
2021. Introduction. In Travel, Translation and Transmedia Aesthetics, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Sepp, Arvi
2018. Moving texts. In The Fictions of Translation [Benjamins Translation Library, 139], ► pp. 139 ff. DOI logo
Ahmed, Mohamed A. H.
2016. Arabic Codes in Hebrew Texts: On the Typology of Literary Code-switching. Journal of Jewish Languages 4:2 ► pp. 203 ff. DOI logo
Ahmed, Mohamed A. H.
2018. Codes across languages: On the translation of literary code-switching. Multilingua 37:5 ► pp. 483 ff. DOI logo
Asimakoulas, Dimitris
2016. How Balkan Am I? Translation and Cultural Intimacy Through an Albanian-Greek Lens. Meta 61:2 ► pp. 439 ff. DOI logo
Sofronieva, Tzveta
2014. Erwin Schrödinger’s Poetry. Science & Education 23:3 ► pp. 655 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 december 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.