Cover not available

Article published In: Target
Vol. 35:2 (2023) ► pp.215–241

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Multi-retranslation and cultural variation

The case of Franz Kafka

 | Washington UniversitySt. Louis
 | Washington UniversitySt. Louis
 | Washington UniversitySt. Louis
Published online: 1 November 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.21068.erl
Abstract
Using English and Spanish translations of Franz Kafka’s Die Verwandlung ‘The metamorphosis’ as a case study, this article contributes to current discussions of retranslation, and of cross-linguistic approaches to retranslation in particular. Building on the work of such scholars as Matthew Reynolds and Tom Cheesman, the analysis uses computational methods to evaluate variance among translators across a range of English and Spanish translations. The aim is twofold: first, to evaluate whether we can link translator variation to specific linguistic and rhetorical features in the original; and second, to determine whether those features are stable across languages.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction and related work
  • 2.Corpus and methods
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1The crosslinguistic stability of variation in translation
    • 3.2Correlating part-of-speech categories with translation variation
    • 3.3Translating the Kafkaesque: Modality as a source of variation in translation
  • 4.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (32)
References
Adorno, Theodor W. 1992. “Aufzeichnungen zu Kafka” [Notes on Kafka]. Prismen. Kulturkritik Und Gesellschaft [Prisms. Cultural criticism and society]. Frankfurt am Main: Surhkamp.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bloom, Harold. 1973. The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brownlie, Siobhan. 2006. “Narrative Theory and Retranslation Theory.” Across Languages and Cultures 7 (2): 145–170. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cheesman, Tom. 2015. “Reading Originals by the Light of Translations.” In Shakespeare Survey: Shakespeare, Origins and Originality, vol. 681, edited by Peter Holland, 87–98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cheesman, Tom, Kevin Flanagan, Stephan Thiel, Jan Rybicki, Robert S. Laramee, Jonathan Hope, and Avraham Roos. 2017. “Multi-Retranslation Corpora: Visibility, Variation, Value, and Virtue.” Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 32 (4): 739–760.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coetzee, J. M. 2002. Stranger Shores: Literary Essays, 1986–1999. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Corngold, Stanley. 2007. “Preface.” In Kafka’s Selected Stories: New Translations, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism, translated and edited by Stanley Corngold, vii–xi. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deane-Cox, Sharon. 2014. Retranslation: Translation, Literature and Reinterpretation. London: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Felski, Rita. 2011. “Context Stinks.” In Context?, edited by Herbert F. Tucker, special issue of New Literary History 42 (4): 573–591. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Helbig, Gerhard. 1988. Lexikon deutscher Partikel [Dictionary of German modal particles]. Leipzig: Verlag Enzyklopädie Leipzig.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Helbig, Gerhard, and Agnes Helbig. 1990. Lexikon deutscher Modalwörter [Dictionary of German comment adverbs]. Leipzig: Verlag Enzyklopädie Leipzig.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Herrmann, Berenike. 2017. “In a Test Bed with Kafka: Introducing a Mixed-Methods Approach to Digital Stylistics.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 11 (4). [URL]
Honnibal, Matthew, and Ines Montani. 2022. “spaCy 3.4: Natural Language Understanding with Bloom Embeddings, Convolutional Neural Networks and Incremental Parsing.” [URL]
Kafka, Franz. 1915. Die Verwandlung [The metamorphosis]. Leipzig: Kurt Wolff Verlag. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1948. The Metamorphosis [orig. Die Verwandlung]. Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir. In Select Short Stories of Franz Kafka. New York: The Modern Library.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaidu, Silvia. 2019. Reflexive Translation Studies: Translation as Critical Reflection. London: UCL Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koskinen, Kaisa, and Outi Paloposki. 2015. “Anxieties of Influence: The Voice of the First Translator in Retranslation.” In Voices in Retranslation, edited by Cecilia Alvstad and Alexandra Assis Rosa, special issue of Target 27 (1): 25–39. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kundera, Milan. 1995. Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts. New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Milton, John. 2008. “Foreignization: A Discussion of Theoretical and Practical Issues.” Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature 541: 103–113.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Munday, Jeremy. 2012. Evaluation in Translation: Critical Points of Translator Decision-Making. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Neill, Patrick. 2014. Transforming Kafka: Translation Effects. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Prismatic Jane Eyre. n.d. “Prismatic Jane Eyre: An Experiment in the Study of Translations.” Accessed October 4, 2022. [URL]
Pym, Anthony. 1998. Method in Translation History. Manchester: St. Jerome.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
R Core Team. 2022. “R: A language and environment for statistical computing.” Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. [URL]
Reynolds, Matthew. 2019. Prismatic Translation. Cambridge: Legenda.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rybicki, Jan. 2012. “The Great Mystery of the (Almost) Invisible Translator: Stylometry in Translation.” In Quantitative Methods in Corpus-Based Translation Studies: A Practical Guide to Descriptive Translation Research, edited by Michael P. Oakes and Meng Ji, 231–248. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence. 2003. “Retranslations: The Creation of Value.” Bucknell Review 47 (1): 25–38.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Von Fintel, Kai. 2006. “Modality and Language.” In Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd ed., edited by Donald M. Borchert, 2–16. Detroit: MacMillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, Qing, and Defeng Li. 2012. “Looking for Translator’s Fingerprints: A Corpus-Based Study on Chinese Translations of Ulysses.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 27 (1): 81–93. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Woods, Michelle. 2014. Kafka Translated: How Translators Have Shaped our Reading of Kafka. New York: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Strathausen, Carsten, Wenyi Shang & Andrei Kazakov
2025. Kafka’s Literary Style: A Mixed-Method Approach. Humanities 14:3 ► pp. 61 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 december 2025. 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.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue