Abstracts
Abstract
Mitiarjuk, who has been called the “accidental Inuit novelist” (Martin, 2014), began writing Sanaaq in the mid-1950s and was “discovered” in the late 1960s by a doctoral student of Claude Lévi-Strauss. Bernard Saladin d’Anglure took up this text as his anthropology thesis topic, guided its completion, arranged for its 1984 publication in Inuktitut syllabics, and in 2002 published a French translation; his own former student, Peter Frost, has recently (2013) translated the French version into English. Without the training and tools that would equip an outsider to appreciate Inuit writing and the oral traditions from which it arises, and to judge it on its own merits, scholarly assessment by other than specialist anthropologists or ethnographers has often been felt to be beyond the reach of southerners. Nonetheless, a younger generation of literary scholars such as Keavy Martin, inspired by the work of J. Edward Chamberlin, Robert Allen Warrior and Craig Womack, are working to redress such attitudes. Bringing to bear for the first time the perspective of translation studies, this paper will suggest some ways we can move from ethnography’s purported aim of a systematic study of people and cultures to a rigorous and ethical study of these translated texts, reading them explicitly asliterature, as well as (and perhaps more importantly) asliterary translations.
Keywords:
- translation,
- Inuit,
- Mitiarjuk,
- Sanaaq,
- gender
Résumé
Mitiarjuk, surnommée « the accidental Inuit novelist » (Martin, 2014), a commencé à écrire Sanaaq au milieu des années 1950 et a été « découverte » à la fin des années 1960 par un étudiant de Claude Lévi-Strauss. Bernard Saladin d'Anglure a repris ce texte comme sujet de thèse en anthropologie, en a guidé l’achèvement, a organisé sa publication en 1984 en écriture syllabique inuktitute et en a publié une traduction française en 2002. Peter Frost, ancien étudiant de Saladin d'Anglure, a pour sa part traduit la version française en anglais en 2013. L’étude de la littérature inuite est souvent considérée comme hors de portée des chercheurs non autochtones ou qui ne sont pas formés dans les domaines de l’anthropologie ou de l’ethnographie; ces chercheurs ne seraient pas en mesure de comprendre et d’évaluer à leur juste mesure la littérature inuite et les traditions orales dont elle émane. Une jeune génération de chercheurs du domaine de la littérature, parmi lesquels Keavy Martin, inspiré par les travaux de J. Edward Chamberlin, Robert Allen Warrior et Craig Womack, tente de changer cette perception. Présentant pour la première fois la perspective traductologique, cet article propose des pistes en vue de passer d’un objectif ethnographique centré sur l’étude systématique des personnes et des cultures à une étude rigoureuse et éthique de ces textes traduits, en les abordant explicitement comme littérature et, sans doute plus important encore, comme traductions littéraires.
Mots-clés :
- traduction,
- Inuit,
- Mitiarjuk,
- Sanaaq,
- genre
Appendices
Bibliography
- Alia, Valerie (2009). Names and Nunavut: Culture and Identity in the Inuit Homeland. New York, Berghahn.
- Appiah, Anthony (1993). “Thick Translation.” Callaloo, 16, 4, pp. 808-819.
- Asad, Talal (1986). “The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology.” In J. Clifford and G. E. Marcus, eds. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley, University of California Press, pp. 141-164.
- Bachmann-Medick, Doris (2006). “Meanings of Translation in Cultural Anthropology.” In T. Hermans, ed. Translating Others. Vol. 1. Manchester, St Jerome.
- Baxter, Jeannette, Valerie Henitiuk and Ben Hutchinson (2013). A Literature of Restitution: Critical Essays on W.G. Sebald. Manchester, Manchester University Press.
- Bellos, David (2011). Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translations and the Meaning of Everything. London, Particular.
- Bermann, Sandra and Michael Wood, eds. (2005). Nation, Language and the Ethics of Translation. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
- Boas, Franz (1904). “The History of Anthropology.” Science, 20, 512, pp. 260-275.
- Boas, Franz (1911). Handbook of American Indian Languages. Washington, Government Printing Office.
- Bucholtz, Mary (2000). “The Politics of Transcription.” Journal of Pragmatics, 32, pp. 1439-1465.
- Canadian Association for Translation Studies (2016). “La traduction et l’ethnographie : réflexivité et représentation/Translation and Ethnography: Reflexivity and Representation.” Call for Paper, 29th Annual Conference. Available at: https://studylib.net/doc/6837565/cats-call-for-papers-2016 [consulted 1 May 2016].
- Cole, Terrence (1999 [1929]). “Introduction.” In K. Rasmussen. Across Arctic America. Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition. [Self-translated by the author.] Fairbanks, University of Alaska Press.
- Cronin, Michael (2003). Translation and Globalization. New York, Routledge.
- Cronin, Michael (2010). Public and Private Worlds in Women’s Writing. Cork, Cork University Press.
- Dorais, Louis-Jacques (2010). The Language of the Inuit: Syntax, Semantics, and Society in the Arctic. Montreal and Kingston, McGill-Queen’s University Press.
- Fiola, Marco A., ed. (2004). Translation, Ethics and Society. TTR, 17, 2.
- Freeman, Minnie Aodla (1996 [1994]a). “Introduction.” In O. LeRoux, M. E. Jackson and M. A. Freeman, eds. Inuit Women Artists: Voices from Cape Dorset. San Francisco, Chronicle Books, pp. 14-17.
- Freeman, Minnie Aodla (1996 [1994]b) . “Traditional and Contemporary Roles of Inuit Women.” In O. LeRoux, M. E. Jackson and M. A. Freeman, eds. Inuit Women Artists: Voices from Cape Dorset. San Francisco, Chronicle Books. pp. 248-250.
- Freeman, Mini Aodla (2015 [1976]). Life among the Qallunaat. 2nd edition. In J. Rak, K. Martin and N. Dunning, eds. Winnipeg, University of Manitoba Press.
- Frost, Peter, trans. (2014). Sanaaq. An Inuit Novel. By Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk. Winnipeg, University of Manitoba Press. Inukjuaq, Publications Nunavik/Avataq Cultural Institute.
- Geertz, Clifford (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. New York, Basic Books.
- Genette, Gérard (1997). Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Trans. Jane E. Lewin. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
- Harper, Kenn (2000 [1986]). Give me my father’s body: The life of Minik, the New York Eskimo. Foreword by Kevin Spacey. South Royalton [VT], Steerforth Press.
- Henitiuk, Valerie (1999). “Translating Woman: Reading the Female through the Male.” Meta, 44, 3, pp. 469-484.
- Henitiuk, Valerie (2008a). ‘“Easyfree Translation?’ How the Modern West Knows Sei Shônagon’s Pillow Book.” Translation Studies, 1, 1, pp. 2-17.
- Henitiuk, Valerie (2008b). “Going to Bed with Waley: How Murasaki Shikibu Does and Does Not Become World Literature.” Comparative Literature Studies, 45, 1, pp. 40-61.
- Henitiuk, Valerie (2010a). “A Creditable Performance under the Circumstances? Suematsu Kenchô and the Pre-Waley Tale of Genji.” TTR, 23, 1, pp. 41-70.
- Henitiuk, Valerie (2010b). “Squeezing the Jellyfish: Early Western Attempts to Characterize Translation from the Japanese.” In J. St. André, ed. Thinking through Translation with Metaphors. Manchester, St. Jerome, pp. 144-160.
- Henitiuk, Valerie (2011). “Prefacing Gender: Framing Sei Shônagon for a Western Audience, 1875-2006.” In L. von Flotow, ed. Translating Women. Ottawa, University of Ottawa Press, pp. 239-261.
- Henitiuk, Valerie (2012a). Worlding Sei Shônagon: The Pillow Book in Translation. Ottawa, University of Ottawa Press.
- Henitiuk, Valerie (2012b). “Optical Illusions? Literary Translation as a Refractive Process.” In R. Wilson and L. Gerber, eds. Creative Constraints: Translation and Authorship. Clayton, Monash University Publishing, pp. 3-20.
- Henitiuk, Valerie (2017). “Of Breathing Holes and Contact Zones: Inuit-Canadian Writer Markoosie in and through Translation.” Target: International Journal of Translation Studies, 29, 1, pp. 39-63.
- Henitiuk, Valerie and Supriya Kar, ed. (2016). Spark of Light: Short stories by women writers from Odisha. Edmonton, Athabasca University Press.
- Hopper, Tristan (2015). “With nine written versions and two alphabets, Inuit language finally getting much needed makeover.” The National Post, 23 September. Available at: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/with-nine-written-versions-and-two-alphabets-inuit-language-finally-getting-much-needed-makeover [consulted May 1 2016].
- Inghilleri, Moira (and Carol Maier) (2011). “Ethics.” In M. Baker and G. Saldanha, eds. Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. 2nd edition. London, Routledge, pp. 100-104.
- Jackson, Marion E. (1996 [1994]). “The Voices of Inuit Women.” In O. LeRoux, M. E. Jackson and M. A. Freeman, eds. Inuit Women Artists: Voices from Cape Dorset. San Francisco, Chronicle Books. pp. 37-40.
- Kennedy, Michael P. J. (2011). “Canadian Inuit Literature in English, a Critical Bibliography.” In K. Langgard and K. Thisted, eds. From Oral Tradition to Rap: Literatures of the Polar North. Nuuk, Ilisimatausarfik/Forlaget Atuagkut, pp. 189-222.
- Kilbourn, Russell J.A. (2014). “When I Swallow His Heart and Lungs, Jesus is Pleased.” Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 19, 4, pp. 95-110.
- Kittel, Harald and Armin Paul Frank (1999). Interculturality and the Historical Study of Literary Translations. Berlin, Göttingen Center for Translation Studies.
- Kulchyski, Peter (2006). “six gestures.” In P. Stern and L. Stevenson, eds. Critical Inuit Studies: An Anthology of Contemporary Arctic Ethnography. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, pp. 155-167.
- Kunuk, Zacharius, ed. (2002). Atanarjuat. Igloolik Isuma Productions.
- Kunuk, Zacharius and Norman Cohen, eds. (2006). The Journals of Knud Rasmussen. Igloolik Isuma Productions.
- Lefevere, André (1992). Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. London, Routledge.
- Leroux, Odette, Marion E. Jackson and Minnie Aodla Freeman, eds. (1996 [1994]). Inuit Women Artists: Voices from Cape Dorset. San Francisco, Chronicle Books.
- Markoosie (1970). Harpoon of the Hunter. Illustrations by Germaine Arnaktauyok. Montreal and London, McGill-Queen’s University Press.
- Martin, Keavy (2014). “Southern Readers Finally Get a Chance to Read Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk, the Accidental Inuit Novelist” [Review of Sanaaq, transl. by Frost]. The Globe and Mail, 17 January. Avaiable at: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/southern-readers-finally-get-a-chance-to-read-mitiarjuk-nappaaluk-the-accidental-inuit-novelist/article16389857/ [consulted May 1 2016].
- McGrath, Robin (1984). Canadian Inuit Literature: The Development of a Tradition. Ottawa, National Museums of Canada.
- McGrath, Robin (1997). “Circumventing the Taboos: Inuit Women’s Autobiographies. In P. Greenbill and D. Tye, eds. Undisciplined Women: Tradition and Culture in Canada. Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp. 223-233.
- Nappaaluk, Salome Mitiarjuk (1984). Sanaaq unikkausinnguaq. Roman inuit par Salome Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk. Québec, Association Inuksiutiit.
- Nappaaluk, Salome Mitiarjuk (2002). Sanaaq. [Translated from Inuktitut to French by Bernard Saladin D’Anglure.] Paris and Outremont, Stanké.
- Nappaaluk, Salome Mitiarjuk (2014). Sanaaq. [Translated from French to English by Peter Frost.] Winnipeg, University of Manitoba Press; Inukjuaq, Publications Nunavik/Avataq Cultural Institute.
- Nord, Christiane (1997). Translating as a Purposeful Activity. Manchester, St. Jerome.
- Nunavut Arctic College (8 June 2016). 2016/17-ᒥ ᑐᓵᔨ ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑑᓕᕆᔨ [2016/17 Interpreter Translator] Available at: http://www.arcticcollege.ca/iu/inuit-language-culture/item/4906-interpreter-translator-program/4906-interpreter-translator-program [consulted 30 June 2017].
- Patrick, Donna and Perry Shearwood (1999). “The Roots of Inuktitut-Language Bilingual Education.” The Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 19, 2, pp. 249-262.
- Pratt, Mary Louise (1991). “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Profession, pp. 33-40.
- Pym, Anthony, ed. (2001). The Return to Ethics. The Translator, 7, 2.
- Qumaq Allatangit, Taamusi (1991). Inuit Uqausillaringit: Ulirnaisigutiit. Québec, Association Inuksiutiit Katimajiit.
- Rak, Julie, Keavy Martin and Norma Dunning (2015). “Afterword.” In M. A. Freeman, Life among the Qallunaat. 2nd edition. Winnipeg, University of Manitoba Press, pp. 260-275.
- Rasmussen, Knud (1908). The People of the Polar North: A Record. London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.
- Rasmussen, Knud (1927). Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition. [Self-translated by the author.] New York, G.P. Putman’s Sons.
- Rasmussen, Knud (1929). “Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921-24.” The Danish Expedition to Arctic North America in Charge of Knud Rasmussen. Vol. VII, No. 1. Copenhagen, Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag.
- Rasmussen, Knud (1999 [1929]). Across Arctic America. Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition. [Self-translated by the author.] Introduction by Terrence Cole. Fairbanks, University of Alaska Press.
- Rasmussen, Knud, with W. Worster (1921). Eskimo Folk-Tales. London, Gyldendal.
- Research Group on Translation and Transcultural Contact (n.d.). Tusaaji: A Translation Review. Available at: https://tusaaji.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/tusaaji/index [consulted 1 May 2016].
- Rosman, Abraham and Paula G. Rubel, eds. (2003). Translating Cultures: Perspectives on Translation and Anthropology. London, Bloomsbury.
- Saladin d’Anglure, Bernard (1969). Sanaaq. Récit esquimau composé par Mitiarjuk. Thèse de doctorat de troisième cycle présentée à l’École pratique des hautes études, cinquième section, sous la direction de Madame E. Lot-Falck. Vol. 1. Présentation, traduction libre et commentaire ethnographique. Vol. 2. Document ethnographique translittéré du syllabique et traduit littéralement. Paris, Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale.
- Saladin d’Anglure, Bernard (1990). “Frère-lune (Taqqiq), soeur-soleil (Siqiniq) et l’intelligence du Monde (Sila). Cosmologie inuit, cosmographie arctique et espace-temps chamanique.” Études/Inuit/Studies, 14, 1-2, pp. 75-139.
- Saladin d’Anglure, Bernard (2000). “Pijariurniq. Performances et rituels inuit de la première fois.” Études/Inuit/Studies, 24, 2, pp. 89-113.
- Saladin d’Anglure, Bernard, trans. (2002). “Postface.” Sanaaq. By Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk. Paris and Outremont, Stanké.
- Schneider, Lucien, o.m.i. (1985). Ulirnaisigutiit: An Inuktitut-English Dictionary of Northern Quebec, Labrador and Eastern Arctic Dialects (with an English-Inuktitut Index). Translated from the French and transliterated by Dermot Roman F. Collis. Québec, Les Presses de l’Université Laval.
- Simon, Sherry (1996). Gender in Translation: Cultural Identity and the Politics of Transmission. London, Routledge.
- Sturge, Kate (2007). Representing Others: Translation, Ethnography and the Museum. Manchester, St. Jerome.
- Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015). Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action. Winnipeg, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Available at: http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/Findings/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf [consulted May 19 2016].
- von Flotow, Luise (1997). Translation and Gender: Translating in the ‘Era’ of Feminism. Ottawa, University of Ottawa Press.
- Watt-Cloutier, Sheila (2015). The Right to be Cold: One Woman’s Story of Protecting her Culture, the Arctic, and the Whole Planet. Toronto, Allen Lane.