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Translating Science Fiction: a Dystopian Task?
Javier Martín Párraga
Universidad de Córdoba
javier.martin@uco.es
Fecha de recepción: 13.06.2013
Fecha de aceptación: 25.02.2014
Abstract: Even science fiction is certainly an ambiguous category, it wouldn’t be
exaggerated to assert that it is one of the most popular genres within the second half
of the twentieth century and the first years of the twenty first one. Every single year
numberless new science fiction books are published, together with a wide variety of
films and TV shows that could also be catalogued as science fictional. On the other
hand, science fiction is no longer a marginal genre but one that is populated by
authors such as Margaret Atwood, Douglas Coupland or Kurt Vonnegut. The aim of
this paper is to examine the many problems that arise when translating science
fiction texts.
Key words: Translation, Science Fiction, American Literature.
¿Resulta una distopía traducer la ciencia ficción?
Resumen: A pesar de lo ambiguo que resulta el término, la ciencia ficción es sin
duda una de los géneros más populares de la segunda mitad del siglo XX y
comienzos del XXI. Cada año se publican infinidad de novelas que podrían
englobarse dentro de esta categoría, así como numerosas películas y series
televisivas que hacen lo propio. Por otra parte, aunque siguen existiendo
determinadas reticencias, la ciencia ficción no es ya un género minoritario y
marginal, sino que autores del prestigio de Margaret Atwood, Douglas Coupland o
Kurt Vonnegut producen, o han producido, obras que corresponden de una u otra
manera al mismo. El objetivo de la presente comunicación es examinar las
dificultades traductológicas que presentan los términos científicos contenidos en
estas obras.
Key words: Traducción, Ciencia ficción, Narrativa norteamericana.
Sumario: 1. What do we translate when we translate science fiction? 2. The problems
concerning the translation of science fiction texts. 2.1. Economic viases. 2.2. New universes
imply new languages. 2.3. Technological language. (Tentative) Conclusions.
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1. What do we translate when we translate science fiction?
As Willis E. McNelly points out, “science fiction has as many
definitions as literature itself” (1977: 89). Thus, the first difficult task the
translator of a science fiction text has to tackle before initiating the
translation process is to answer the always complex question, “what does
the science fiction tag exactly stands for?”
There are several reasons why defining science fiction in a precise
manner becomes a titanic task. In the first place, I have to mention the
deconstruction of traditional genres revolutions and the tendency towards
eclecticism and hybridity that occurs during the postmodern intellectual
revolutions of the first half of the twentieth century. In that particular skeptic
scenario, traditional generic certainties became under suspicion, when not
directly invalidated.
A second reason why there is not a clear univocal definition of the
term is related to the traditional conception of science fiction as a minor &
marginal literary genre that was highly enjoyed by young “uncultivated”
readers but not appreciated by academic audiences.
Thus, I am perfectly aware of the tentative and provisional nature of
my present efforts to characterize science fiction. Nevertheless, I am also
convinced of the necessity of throwing certain light on this question, even if
that light is to be blurry by definition.
The first paradox that appears when trying to give science fiction a
definition is the following one: science fiction might probably be one of the
better known and most frequently employed tags from several different
contexts that reach from publishing houses and film companies to critics and
non-professional audiences. In this point it becomes pertinent to quote Adam
Roberts, who explains that apparent paradox in the following terms, “The
term ‘science fiction’ resists easy definition. This is curious, because most
people have a sense of what science fiction is. Any bookstore will have a
section devoted to SF” (2006: 1).
Nevertheless, and besides the ubiquity of the term, it corresponds to a
relatively new literary phenomenon. In his outstanding introduction to The
Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (2003), James Gunn explains that
the category was actually coined in the year 1929 by editor Hugo Gernsback
(xvi), who did not only invent the nomenclature but also planted the first
seminal seeds of what is nowadays understood as science fiction.
Gunn’s affirmation is generally accepted by the majority of experts,
but it is important to point out that it is only modern science fiction what
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Gunn invented. The reason why experts such as Brian Stableford insist so
much on this pertinent nuance is that according to them literary works such
as Valentin Andreae’s Christianopolis (1619) & Tommaso Campanella’s La
Cittá del Sole (written in 1602 and published in 1623) are the true ancient
relatives of the genre. Thus, if we are to trace science fiction origins our trip
must go as far as the seventeenth century. So, Gunn invented modern
science fiction but the sources from where he got inspiration are certainly
much older and link the genre with Renaissance utopias and speculative
fictions.
Anyhow, even Stableford insists on the importance of utopian and
speculative fiction as early examples of science fiction, this same scholar
agress that modern science fiction is a contemporary invention, since
according to this same scholar the genre gains importance during the
second half of the twentieth century due to socio-political reasons, beacause
it “celebrates the liberating power of technological invention” (1990: 41) and
its main “virtues […] were its imaginative ambition and enthusiasm, its
prolific inventiveness and melodramatic grandiosity, its hunger for ingenious
novelties, and its corollary fecundity of images and ideas” (1990: 46). Thus,
the genre fitted perfectly the zeitgeist of the European and American cultures
from the interwars period.
Patrick Parrinder explains that as well as the political clime of
instability and the constant threat that was haunting Europe at the time (that
was, to a lesser extend, shared by the USA, that was suffering the
aftereffects of the terrible Great Depression), also the contemporary
fascination caused by the numberless new inventions, techniques and
machines contributed to create extraordinary expectations but also a certain
“cognitive estrangement” (2001: 5-6). As it looks obvious, science fiction was
the best possible vehicle to deal with this proliferation of gadgets and
cognitive estrangement.
Bruce Franklin summarizes this situation in the following quotation,
It was the spring of 1939, and the World of Tomorrow was about to go
on exhibit. The conflagration later to be known as World War II had in
fact already ignited in parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe… America itself
was still wallowing in the depths of the international Depression, with
over nine and a half million people unemployed. But it was also
bounding ahead technologically. Radio broadcasting had now been
around for almost two decades. One could fly coast-to-coast on a
commercial DC-3 in just twenty-four hours. The future seemed both
thrilling and chilling (1983: 107).
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In her seminal paper, "From Trauma to Paranoia: Nuclear Weapons,
Science Fiction and History" (1999), Cindy Hendershot concludes that the
genesis of modern science fiction runs parallel to the development of
military-oriented nuclear experimentation.
Thus, George E. Slusser, Colin Greenland & Eric S. Rabkin consider
that science fiction seems to be looking at the future, but its main frame of
analysis is the present moment, even if tainted by a veil of pessimism that
makes the possibility of a future highly difficult, when not openly apocliptic
(1986: ix-xii). Quoting Slusser’s own words:
We might think of science fiction as a literature in love with the future.
For it is alone in possessing this dimension, alone in seeking to imagine,
as things to come, realms that, in a maximum way, seem to respond to
our sense of wonder. And yet, if we heed some of SF's most famous
texts, and increasing numbers of its commentators, the very opposite is
true. Seen in this light, SF's future imaginations are dominated instead
by terror. And this terror is tautology, closure: for if SF lets us see the
future, it is to enable us to experience dread, thus to be warned away
from an activity which, if pursued, leads us inexorably from bad to worse
(1986: 3).
Joseph Nesvadba explains that science fiction was also popular in the
Communist countries, mostly because it “was fashionable and it was
understood also as a political protest” (2000: 34).
Other experts, such as Brian Attebery, agree that science fiction was
fundamental in the inter-wars period and during the posterior Cold War, but
they called our attention upon other socio-political aspects played by the
genre, since “[it] began to be recognized in the 1960s and 1970s as a
powerful tool for examining gender issues” (2000: 131).
As it results evident, even if we have to go back in time till the
sixteenth century in search of the first texts that could be considered as
“proto-science fiction”, the vast majority of experts don’t hesitate to affirm
that the modern version of the genre is not only representative of the modern
period but also an heir from it.
If tracing the origins of the genre and the editor who named it are
relatively simple tasks, trying to identify and define its main features will be
much more difficult ventures. The first stop in our journey will necessarily be
at the
Columbia Encylopedia, which succinctly asserts that, “(sf is a) literary
genre in which a background of science or pseudoscience is an integral part
of the story” (2000: 42692). Isaac Asimov also defines science fiction as
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“that branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific
advances upon human beings” (1977: 29). It is true that this definition does
not point towards any inherently wrong direction, but from my point of view it
is so general that it cannot be described as simplistic since it does never
offer any aspect that could help us to delimitate the frontiers between this
genre and many other contemporary ones. In this sense, as the science
fiction writer and scholar Robert A. Heinlein affirms, “to define is to limit; a
definition cannot be useful unless it limits” (1977: 4).
But neither the Columbia or Asimov’s definitions allow us to limit our
genre even in a slight manner. Thus, if we followed these definitions on a
literal manner, we would be able to accept that some literary works that have
never been labeled as examples of science fiction should be included within
this category. For instance, Thomas Pynchon’s or Douglas Coupland’s
whole corpuses seem to fit into the ambiguous definition offered by the
Columbia or by Assimov.
This problem becomes ubiquitous when trying to draw the boundaries
of science fiction, since the majority of definitions offer some accurate
elements, but at the same time refuse to establish any clear elements that
are exclusive from the science fictional universe. As a result, there are some
authors and experts that have decided to accept that “I never did know just
what ‘science fiction’ meant: in all the nights I stayed awake till dawn
debating definitions, I do not recall one that stood up unflinchingly to the light
of day” (Merrill, 1971: 53). Andy Sawyer keeps walking this path, at the
same time that formulates an extremely enlightening metaphor, “a library of
science fiction is a library of Babel: a collection of fictions classified as
‘science fiction’ because someone, somewhere, has decided that they
reflect, somehow, one of the many definitions of sf” (2000: 5).
Nevertheless, there are many critical voices that have refused to
throw the towel.
Judith Merrill, who started by affirming her own inability to define
science fiction once, decided to refer to “speculative fiction, stories whose
objective is to explore, to discover, to learn, by means of projection,
extrapolation, analogue, hypothesis-and-paper-experimentation, something
about the nature of the universe, of man, of ‘reality’” (1971: 60).
Nickianne Moody embraces another perspective, since she affirms
that science fiction is not an artistic or literary label, but a merely commercial
one, “science fiction is whatever is sold as science fiction” (2000: 179).
Robert A. Heinlein gives us a more concrete delineation in the
following quotation,
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A handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic
speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate
knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough
understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method
(1977: 9).
Robert L.Forward considers that the key element in any science fiction
story is not but its extreme freedom, “if you do pick this genre, then literally
whole new worlds open up for you. No longer are your characters limited to
one sex partner (zero, four, and unlimited are only a few choices). No longer
are your skies limited to one sun, one moon, a few planets, and lots of stars”
(1986: 2). Nevertheless, Forward is careful to explain that this freedom is not
going to take science fiction authors away from humanity’s ancestral worries
and existential dilemmas,
One can use science to create a world, an accurate, unusual world,
which is completely correct as far as known science is concerned. The
writer can then people that world with ordinary aliens, that have the
same drives, the same fears, the same taboos, the same habits as the
human creatures around us. But it really doesn't matter if you have done
better than to just give them blue skin to set off their pointy ears above
their purple-lipped mouths, for aliens that are humans in costume are
trite (1986: 3).
Thomas D. Clareson agrees with Forward and affirms that ‘Ray
Bradbury felt that science fiction is the only form of literature in which
philosophy, sociology, psychology, and history can be "played with" without
ruining the work as literature; it creates "outsize images" of the problems that
face society’ (1971: xi).
Another expert, Paul A. Carter, thinks that thanks to its preoccupation
with timeless human concerns, science fiction is not facing the risk of
obsolescence even if the advances of modern science may exceed the
technical inventions its novels portray (1986).
C.N. Manlove studies the reject that science fiction has traditionally
caused within academic contexts, and estimates that the academic world
and “serious” editors considered the genre as “the sub-literary product of
cranks and escapists, and read and ardently defended only by cultists of the
genre” (1986:1).
Norman Spinard considers that science fiction is not a popular genre
within cultivated readers basically because of the perennial Manichaeism it
shows,
The universe of sci-fi, unlike the universe in which we unfortunately find
ourselves, is relentlessly moral; good always triumphs over evil, the
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white hats always triumph over the black…Sci-fi's exploration of morality
is generally confined, as so many book jacket blurbs proudly proclaim,
to the "battle of good against evil"; the teams have their names clearly
lettered on their uniforms, and the home team must always win’ (1990:
22).
C.S.Lewis develops Spinards’s concept as follows, “of course, a given
reader may be (some readers seem to be) interested in nothing else in the
world except detailed studies of complex human personalities. If so, he has
a good reason for not reading those kinds of work which neither demand nor
admit it” (1977: 124).
Gary Westfahl points towards a different cause underlying the bad
relations between science fiction and academia, the genre’s main target
audience,
science fiction has been continually invigorated and inspired by its
relationship with youthful readers--the audience that the genre has
always enjoyed-and science fiction has more recently been
strengthened and empowered by its relationship with the masses--the
audience that the genre had to work harder to attract, or perhaps an
audience that had to evolve in order to appreciate the genre (2000: 11).
As the next quotation proves, Leslie Fiedler agrees with Westfahl:
For a long time, however, such writing remained by and large pop
criticism, as seemed appropriate enough for what was still a popular
genre, ghettoized in pulp magazines and read almost exclusively by a
minority audience, chiefly white adolescent males, convinced that they
hated everything which their teachers considered literature (2000: 1).
Samuel R. Delany also refers to a certain “ghetto quality” (1987: 51),
“science fiction […] for many years bore a small, turnerous excrescence,
sometimes called "fantasy" and sometimes ‘sword and sorcery’” (1987: 66).
In the last years, this situation seems to be changing, since as Damian
Broderick explains,
Since fiction has gone from a set of practices employed in a
commercial-cum-artistic ghetto to a major component of the
entertainment industry […] it attracts all the benefits and blights
associated with commercial megavisibility. It is not alone in this, but the
mode has been badly mauled by the coincidence (1995: 65).
To finish my attempt at defining science fiction, I would like to quote
Broderick again, since his opinion is the most comprehensive and precise
one:
Sf is that species of storytelling native to a culture undergoing the
epistemic changes implicated in the rise and supersession of technical-
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industrial modes of production, distribution, consumption and disposal. It
is marked by (i) metaphoric strategies and metonymic tactics, (ii) the
foregrounding of icons and interpretative schemata from a collectively
constituted generic ‘mega-text’ and the concomitant de-emphasis of ‘fine
writing’ and characterization, and (iii) certain priorities more often found
in scientific and postmodern texts than in literary models: specifically,
attention to the object in preference to the subject (2000: 155).
As a result of the extreme ambiguity and lack of academic consensus
that haunts science fiction, when a translator is given a science fiction book
or short story to translate, he or she is never sure what he’s translating. Thus
he must start the translating process deprived of any certainty about the
main features and reader’s expectations inherent to this particular cultural
manifestation.
2. The problems concerning the translation of science fiction texts
2.1. Economic viases
The first problem that has traditionally plagued many science fiction
translations is linked to economic questions. Unfortunately, translation works
have never received a very high payment and this situation becomes
especially true when we’re dealing with “glossy” books that are produced in
a very fast manner and in a quite reduced number of copies.
In the previous section of this paper I affirmed that “serious” critics and
readers did never take science fiction too seriously. As a result, publishing
houses all over the world keep publishing many editions of science fiction
texts, both in their native language and in translation. But, with some obvious
exceptions (mainly authors that started their professional career within the
boundaries of science fiction but moved on to more serious genres later),
these editions did not pay much attention to the quality of these editions, not
to speak of their translations.
Thus, it is not hard to understand that the best professionals won’t
generally assume a translation that is produced under a lot of pressure but
receives a not very significant gratification. And even in the cases where a
competent translator accepts the task, he will have to complete his job in a
time frame that could possibly be insufficient. This situation is common to the
American and European publishing markets and, as a result, both English
translation and translations of English texts into other western languages
suffer the same problems.
In the Spanish context it is important to point out that many
translations that were made prior to the 80’s of the previous century took
place in Latin America. In those cases, even the message was certainly
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transmitted; Spanish readers quite often felt an added layer of estrangement
that compromised the verisimilitude of the target text.
2.2. New universes imply new languages
Many science fiction texts opt to place the characters and actions in a
far-away setting or in a post-apocalyptic scenario. Thus, ordinary language
gets very frequently disrupted in a serious way. Or even completely replaced
by a new jargon that immediately makes the task of translating those works
doubly complex.
Since the list of science fiction novels that develop a new language
that is based on English but departs from this language in a significant
manner is extremely populated, in the present paper I have simply chosen
some quintessential examples.
The first example I would like to make reference to corresponds to
Anthony Burgess’ 1962 dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange. The novel,
which is considered by academic critics as one of English most influential
and sophisticated texts of the twentieth century, takes the reader to a
futuristic but nevertheless close scenario in which technology is advanced
but morals are primitive and certainly savage. In order to make this future
environment even more awkward and threatening, Burgess follows Viktor
Shklovski’s principle of ostranenie (остранение in the Russian original
version of the term) or defamiliarization and transforms quotidian actions
and expressions into something that is simultaneously new and different. In
other words, by the use of a new and strange language, A Clockwork
Orange becomes a seminal example of Freudian Unheimliche or uncanny.
The language invented by Burgess in the novel receives the name of
Nadsat and is influenced by Russian. I will now pass on to offer some
examples of this new language.
Nadsat English
Appypolly loggy Apology
Bezoomy Mad
Bugatty Rich
Cancer Cigarette
Creech Scream
Eemya Name
Guff Laugh
Jammiwam Jam
Lubbilubbing Making love
Nadsat Teenage
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Orange Man
The previous terms have been selected to prove how complex this
new language is, since it originates from Russian words, onomatopoeias and
invented out of the blue words in equal parts. Thus, following the novel
without a glossary becomes quite complicated even in the source language.
As it is evident, it is needless to say that taking this set of farfetched terms
into another language can quite possibly be closer to a translator’s
nightmare than to a mere adventure.
The next example of a science fiction novel that develops a new
artificial language corresponds to Kurt Vonnegut’s 1963 novel Cat’s Cradle.
The scenario, is one more time, apocalyptic and dystopian in nature and the
language introduced by Vonnegut in the novel is the one employed by a
strange socio-religious sect that behaves like a sort of extended family that
comforts the surviving humans in the nightmarish setting of the text. In this
case, the new slang will be called Bokonon. The following examples have
been taken from the novel:
Bokonon English
Karass a group of people who, often unknowingly,
are working together to do God's will. The
people can be thought of as fingers in a
Cat's Cradle.
Duprass a karass of only two people, who almost
always die within a week of each other.
The typical example is a loving couple
who work together for a great purpose.
Granfalloon a false karass; i.e., a group of people who
imagine they have a connection that does
not really exist. An example is "Hoosiers";
Hoosiers are people from Indiana, and
Hoosiers have no true spiritual destiny in
common, so really share little more than a
name.
Foma harmless untruths.
Wrang-wrang Someone who steers a Bokononist away
from their line of perception. For example
the narrator of the book is steered away
from Nihilism when his Nihilist house sitter
kills his cat and leaves his apartment in
disrepair.
Kan-kan An object or item that brings a person into
their karass. The narrator states in the
book that his kan-kan was the book he
wrote about the Hiroshima bombing.
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Sinookas The intertwining "tendrils" of people's lives.
Vin-dit A sudden shove in the direction of
Bokononism.
Saroon To acquiesce to a vin-dit.
Stuppa A fogbound child (i.e. an idiot).
Duffle The destiny of thousands of people placed
on one stuppa.
Sin-wat A person who wants all of somebody's
love for himmself.
Boko-maru The supreme act of worship of the
Bokononists, which is an intimate act
consisting of prolonged physical contact
between the naked soles of the feet of two
persons.
The last example of how science fiction literature invents or adapts
previous languages in order to create an alternate universe that is both
common and unknown to the reader belongs to Russell Hoban’s 1980 novel
Riddley Walker. Unlike Burgess or Vonnegut, Hoban does not invent a new
language from other western languages or sheer imagination but rather by
revisiting Old and Middle English. Hoban’s invented new language is
consequent with the plot of the novel, in which a post-apocalyptic reduced
group of survivors go back to a Middle Ages-like way of living. The following
examples are representative of this language:
Every body knows Aunty. Stoan boans and iron tits and teef be twean
her legs plus she has a iron willy for the ladys it gets red hot. When your
time comes you have to do the juicy with her like it or not. She rides a
girt big rat with red eyes it can see in the dark and it can smel whos
ready for Aunty. Even if they dont know it ther selfs the rat can smel if
theyre ready (1980: 90-91).
The worl is ful of things waiting to happen. Thats the meat and boan of it
right there. You myt think you can jus go here and there doing nothing.
Happening nothing. You cant tho you bleeding cant. You put your self
on any road and some thing wil show its self to you. Wanting to happen.
Waiting to happen. You myt say, 'I dont want to know.' But 1ce its showt
its self to you you wil know wont you. You cant not know no mor. There
it is and working in you. You myt try to put a farness be twean you and it
only you cant becaws youre carrying it inside you. The waiting to
happen aint out there where it ben no more its inside you (1980: 154).
I cud feal some thing growing in me it wer like a grean sea surging in me
it wer saying, LOSE IT. Saying, LET GO. Saying, THE ONLYES
POWER IS NO POWER (1980: 167).
As it becomes evident from the quotations above, in order to offer a
translation of this novel, knowledge of old fashion varieties of English
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together with a similar skill in the target language is necessary. Unlike other
science fiction texts, Riddley Walker received an excellent translation into
Spanish language by María Luisa Pascual and David Cruz, whose
translation received the Premio de Traducción de la Asociación Española de
Estudios Anglo-norteamericanos in the year 2005. Below are some
examples of how Pascual and Cruz transported Hoban’s strange and
exciting language into Spanish:
Sigo scriviendo aqui sobre el mismo dia. El dia en que mi padre murio.
Pinchamos la caveça del perro en la staca i la colocamos sobre la casa
de entrada. Sola Otrosvientos la qustodiava. Niños pequeños
zarandavan devajo. Jugavan a la Manada Negra cançoneando (2011:
88).
Cargo el peso a mi destino a lo largo del camino. Eusa ya ha partido.
Ste fue mi 1er spectaqulo Eusa siendo yo nexo. Entreprestado por Avel
Verbiclemente i Nesto Ofrentas los 2 Mandamases el Mistro Scotilla i el
Mistro Governador la noche que mempusieron la cicatriz (2011: 131).
Eran demasiados i no teniamos nada que hazer vi a mi padre caer con
1 flecha en el coraçon i otros cayendo yo cai tan bien i me deslize entre
la yerba crecida.Quando acavaron de matar a los hombres los oi
lleuando se a las mujeres. Scondido en el bosque oia todo aquello i olia
el humo aun puedo oler lo se tratatva de humo de gente i de madera,
Quando volvio la calma sali arrastrando me. No podia oir nada solo el
restallar del fuego i los quervos llamando se unos a otros (2011: 224).
2.3. Technological language
The third problem translators find when they are preparing the
translation of a science fiction novel or screenplay is quite obvious: scientific
terminology. As I shown in the first section of this paper, there is not a clear
consensus on the exact nature of the term science fiction, but there are no
doubts that this particular type of literature uses science either as an excuse
or as a fundamental part of the narrative structure. Even in many occasions
the scientific terminology employed in science fiction narratives is invented,
at least some rudimentary scientific knowledge becomes indispensable in
order to follow the unfolding of the different stories, plots and subplots. Thus,
the translator must not only be able to translate literary texts in a competent
manner but he must also be capable of managing some scientific terms and
concepts in both the source and target languages.
Virtually any science fiction novel we might select (no matter how
random this selection could be) would offer us several examples of scientific
terminology, including real scientific terms together with fictional or newly
coined pseudo-technological words and syntactic structures. In the present
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paper I would offer several examples from Douglas Coupland, a Canadian
post-modern novelist that cannot be considered as a “hardcore” science
fictionist but, nevertheless, plays very often with scientific concepts
throughout his literary corpus.
In his opus primum, Generation X, Tales from an Accelerated Culture
(1991), Coupland coins the following neologisms that are scientifically
based: “Ethnomagnetism” (1991: 32), “Vaccinated Time Travel” (1991: 13),
“Clique Maintenance” (1991: 26), “Recurving” (1991: 29), “Safety Net-ism”
(1991: 39), “Celebrity Schadenfreude” (1991: 78), “101-ism” (1991: 97),
“2+2=5-ism” (1991: 161), “Metaphasia” (1991: 190), o “Cryptotechnophobia”
(1991: 200). Later on, in jPod (2007), the following passage is completely
written in computer’s language:
//called each frame and updates camera position based on position of
its target and the current camera cut void
GmMsCameraFollow::vUpdate(TReal rTimeDiff)
// vUpdate2(rTimeDiff);
// return;
GmMsPosKeyFrame *poCurrentDesiredKeyFrame;
(…)
if(ReallsApproxZero(o Temp.m_rZ))
//If the player’s Z position hasn’t changed,
//then slide the box up
[o Temp.m_rZ = rTimeDiff*400.0f;]
else
//If the player’s Z position is changing, leave (2007: 444).
In his last published work, Generation A (2009) Coupland employs
cryptography, as in the example below:
S/-/ip 70 T0ky0 fi135 L8r 70d4y. /\/0, 7/-/3y d0/-/’7 /-/4v3
4 m4(/-/i/-/3 5/-/4p3d 1ik3 4 fu(ki/-/g ki773/-/ 7/-/47 m4k35
5u5/-/i (2009: 292).
Together with some chemistry terms, as the ones contained in the
quotation,
PRODUCT INFORMATION
SOLON CR©
(Dihydride Spliceosomic Protein snRNP-171)
Sustained-Release
Chronosuppresant Tablets
Javier Martín Párraga
Translating Science Fiction: a Dystopian Task?
100
Skopos
5
(201
4
),
87
-
102
DESCRIPTION: SOLON is a protein with chronosuppresive features. It is
a synthetic splioceosomic protein, a complex of specialized RNA and
protein subunits that removes introns from a transcribed pre-mRNA
(hnRNA) segment (2009: 112).
(Tentative) Conclusions
Translating any contemporary piece of literature is never an easy task,
but translating texts from a genre that defies classification and has generally
been considered as marginal becomes an even more complex and
demanding assignment. In this paper I have tried to summarize all the
difficulties translators find when they are asked to carry a science fiction
novel, short story or screenplay from any Western source language to
another target one. The difficulties and complexities inherent to the process
become more apparent in the Spanish context, where science fiction does
not have a very prominent trajectory. On the other hand, the effects of a
cruel and mostly illiterate dictatorship that not only hated but also distrusted
any artistic manifestation that relied on freedom of speech and imagination
are still, no matter how sad this might be, present in some cultural and
academic circles. Thus, from my humble point of view, reflecting on science
fiction as a prolific genre in general and its translation in a more particular
layer becomes a necessary and urgent task.
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Translating Science Fiction: a Dystopian Task?
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