Characteristics Of Popular Fiction As Literary Genre English Language Essay

Characteristics Of Popular Fiction As Literary Genre English Language Essay This chapter will investigate the characteristics of popular fiction as a literary genre and will discuss the nature of translation, as well as the difficulties a translator may confront when translating popular fiction. The chapter is divided into two sub chapters. The first subchapter is written on popular fiction. This section examines main features of this literary genre and makes an attempt to define the relationship between popular fiction and popular culture, also the position of popular fiction within the national literary system. The second subchapter is dedicated to translation. In this subchapter, translation is viewed as a movement of a text from one culture to another. To explain this view, I will first analyse the parts of language that lend themselves to cultural specificity. These include collocation, culture-specific word, phraseological units, accent and speech genres. The purpose of this investigation s to ascertain why such cultural specificities are of importance to the original texts, as well as to the transited texts in particular, and why these cultural specificities may pose problems for translators. 1.Popular fiction The last ten years has witnessed the proliferation of popular fiction both in the number of titles and sales. For instance, Mills and Boon publish 70 new titles each month and pulp any unsold copies after three months. (The Independent, 2008). And there have been changes in reading habit; a report on Market Figures from the UK National Literacy Trust cited on the website of the Romantic Novelist Association reveals that there are more people reading for pleasure than ever before (65% now read for enjoyment compared to 55% in 1979). At the international level, Mills and Boon have their books translated into 25 languages and sell in 100 international markets and a stable of 1,300 authors worldwide are working for Mills and Boom. (The Independent, 2008) The following section of this chapter is dedicated to the study of popular fiction, its relationship with popular culture, and its place in the national literary system. 1.1 Popular fiction as a literary genre The term popular fiction has been defined in a number of ways. In New keywords: a revised vocabulary of culture and society (2005) the word popular has the following distinct uses: Something that is widespread and well-liked by many people; Popular in the contrast between high and popular culture; Popular to mean the mass media imposed on people by commercial interest; Popular used to describe a culture made by the people for themselves. In the very initial understanding, popular fiction is novels, which are well-liked by many people and sold out with enormous quatity. In terms of literary products, Gelder considers popular fiction to be the opposite of Literature. (Gelder, 2004 p.11). Gelder stressed his usage of Literature instead of literature by explaining that the latter is a general field of writing while the former means quality literary works written by such writers as George Elliot, Henry James, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Flannery OConnor, Vladimir Nabokov, Tobias Wolff and so on, (Gelder, 2004 p.11). According to Gelder, these masterpieces deploy a set of logics and practices that are different in kind to those deployed in the field of popular fiction.( Gelder, 2004 p.12). In other words, Literature has tangled plots and intense formal artistry (Amis, 2001 p. 327) and its authors focus on discourses of originality and creativity. Popular fiction, on the other hand, is a kind of industrial practice and its writers use the language of industry instead the language of art world. (Gelder, 2004 p.15) For this reason, Gelder suggests that we should distinguish between two terms author and writer. He argues that popular fiction has less to do with originality and creativity, so for popular fiction, the term writer is preferred to author. (Gelder, 2004 p.14). Another trait differentiating a writer of popular fiction to an author of Literature is their aims; while Literature fictions primary goal is the self-expression of an author, the primary focus of popular fiction is its readers. Thi s explains why popular fiction is strongly supported by the Feminist school. Macherey (1978) and Radway (1987) representatives of the Feminist school are of the belief that readers and their level of interest should be the main concerns of any writers if they want to sell their books. Was Ulysses really a great work of literature if almost no one read it for leisure, and if the few who dared found it so taxing? What did writers owe their audience? How easy were we supposed to make things for them? (Gelder, 2004 p. 23) Readers have a crucial role in the development of popular fiction since the success of popular fiction on the market has revealed why a writer should pay more attention to his/her readers and their interest, especially in the world where more and more people are reading for pleasure. At this point, popular fiction has its merit and it is by no means negligible. Popular fiction is the first rate story teller (Hamilton and Jones, 2009 p.vi) since each story tells a tale, which is the reflection of ordinary readers desire or experience and it has ability to touch readers compassion and understanding (Nash, 1990 p.3). The characteristics of popular fiction Popular fiction is the combination of two main elements: conventions and inventions. According to Cawelti, conventions are elements which are usually quite specific to a particular culture and period and do not mean the same outside this specific context. (Cawelti, 1976 p.5) Stereotyped characters, accepted ideas, commonly known metaphors even favourite plot are examples of conventions. Inventions, on the other hands, are elements which are uniquely imagined by creators (Ashley, 1989 p.87). Such inventional elements could be either new kinds of character ideas, innovative plot or creative usages of language. Both conventions and inventions play significant roles in a cultural context. While conventions represent the shared values of a society, inventions introduce new concepts to the society. Conventions maintain the traditions, customs and stability of a defined culture; inventions bring changes, new values. This explains the popularity of popular fictions since readers could find in these novels a piece of their lives, beliefs, and interests. Such findings bring them satisfaction and emotional security (Cawelti, 1976 p.9). At the same time, inventions provide them with new information about the world and the feeling of escape from the ordinary life around them. It is usually criticized that the genres of popular fiction make overuse of the literary formula, which is the synthesis of a number of specific cultural conventions in a period of time (Cawelti, 1976 p.6). Sewell (1984) stated that the value of popular fiction as literature was subsidiary because of limitations in novelty and creativity of formula fiction. However, such formula fiction fills a strong need for escape and relaxation of readers. Readers experience life, death, violence, and sex described in popular fiction in a manner that increases his sense of confidence and well-ordered existence. (Cawelti, 1976 p.16) Furthermore, formula could be considered to be a kind of literary art because of its two features (1) essential standardlization and (2) its relation to the needs of escape (Cawelti, 1976 p.8) The first characteristic of fomula is the essence of all literature. (Cawelti, 1976 p.8). This is the factor creating the common background between a writer and his/her audience. Such shared experience brings basic emotional security to readers and through this readers may find it easier not only to comprehend the plot, but also to interpret between the lines. In other words, when a bridge between a writer and his/her readers is created, it enables artistic communication. (Cawelti, 1976 p.9) The second feature of formula is of importance since such formulaic elements create the ideal world without limitations or uncertainties in readers imagination. (Cawelti, 1976 p.16) This aspect significantly distinguishes between popular fiction and serious literature. The latter describes the real world and forces its readers to face with the uncertain and unsecured reality when recognizing their involvement in characters whose fates reveal limitations and uncertainties. (Cawelti, 1976 p.13-18) The relationship between popular fiction and popular culture The term popular culture has been defined in numerous ways. Mukerji and Schudson give the following definition of popular culture: Popular culture refers to the beliefs and practices, and the objects through which they are organized, that are widely shared among a population. This includes folk beliefs, practices and objects rooted in local traditions, and mass beliefs, practices and objects generated in political and commercial centers. (Mukerji and Schudson , 1991 p.3-4) Bates and Ferri mention even a broader definition of popular culture: Popular culture is the television we watch, the movies we see, the fast food, or slow food, we eat, the clothes we wear, the music we sing and hear, the things we spend our money for, our attitude toward life. It is the whole society we live in, that which may or may not be distributed by the mass media. It is virtually our whole world (Bates and Ferri, 2010 p.3) From these definitions, it is evident that the formula mentioned above is cultural product. Culture is source for conventions, as well as is the background based on which the mutual understanding between a writer and his audiences. On the other hand, formula also has its impacts on culture since it may become conventional ways of representing and relating certain images, symbols. Flemmings James Bond, Doyles Sherlock Homes, or recently Rowlings Harry Potter could be taken as examples illustrating influences of fictional characters on culture. For instance, Gelder (2004) observes the phenomenon of Harry Potter and ascertains that Harry Potter has spread far beyond the novels themselves. Total sales had reached around 250 million across 200 countries, with the novels translated into 60 languages, including Latin and Welsh. The first Harry Potter film adaptation by Warner Bros. became at the time the second-highest grossing film in history (beaten only by James Camerons The Titanic). A huge amount of media spin-offs and merchandizing helped to keep Harry Potter at the centre of global cultural interest. Discovering such powerful influence of this phenomenon, Gelder concludes that The Harry Potter phenomenon has indeed rebranded, and reglobalized, Britain, presenting to the world a country confident in its past but trying harder than usual to work out the possibilities for the future. (Gelder, 2004 p. 34). Apparently, when a formula is widely successful, it has special appeal and becomes significant to the society. The process through which a formula develops and become a pattern of culture could be name cultural evolution. (Cawelti, 1976 p.20) 1.4 The relationship between popular fiction and literary system Despite the widespread and popularity of popular fiction, in academic world, the place of popular fiction and its importance in academia are still not clear. A confession of an interest in popular fiction would be received with doubts and uncomprehending responses. (Ashley, 1989 p.1) While genres of popular fiction-such as romance, thriller, crime fiction, or science fiction have attracted widespread attention from various perspectives, they have not been considered and investigated as disparate categories( Schneider-Mayerson, 2010 p.21). To explain the overlook on popular fiction, Ashley (1989) states that such neglect is the result of the negative attitude of literary criticism, which consider popular fiction to be the second-rate fiction, or a kind of cultural detritus. (Ashley, 1989 p.3) In the sixties of the twentieth century, Tony Bennet introduced the case of popular fiction as both symptom and cause of cultural degeneracy (Schneider-Mayerson, 2010 p.22). And in literary scholars views, whose focus was the language and style used in literature, popular fiction was a meretricious cousin of real literature. (Schneider-Mayerson, 2010 p.30) However, it is worth viewing popular fiction in the polysystem frame in order to reconsider the position of popular fiction in literature, Even- Zohar introduced his concept of polysystem with the idea that literature is an historical phenomenon that should be analyzed by systematic approaches similar to that of other sciences. He describes The idea of structuredness and systemicity need no longer be identified with homogeneity, a semiotic system can be conceived of as a heterogeneous, open structure. It is, therefore, very rarely a unisystem but is, necessarily, a polysystem a multiple system, a system of various systems which intersect with each other and partly overlap, using concurrently different options, yet functioning as one structured whole, whose members are interdependent (Even-Zohar, 1990 p.11) A literary polysystem is envisaged as the interlinking chains of genres and producers which allow us to identify different types of literature and their social purposes. In the polysystem theory, all fields of literary creativity, popular literature, translated literature, childrens literature, as well as semi-litera ry texts, may become subjects of research. The predominant factors in the polysytem concept are stratification, heterogeneity and dynamics. The polysystem theory also assumes a series of centres and peripheries belonging to the various system within polysystem . There is always a struggle among texts created. The goal of such a battle is to move into the centre of the polysystem, but only a small number of them acquire the status of official, high, and become canonical. Texts which move successfully to the central position are those which are of popularity on the market, as well as among readers. Obviously there are some certain restrictions in the polysytem theories such as the blurred boundaries between centre and periphery but the theory of Even-Zohar allows us to observe the movement and social positioning of popular fiction along with discovering the factors which influence the position of popular fiction in the national literary system. The fame of popular fiction as stated in the introduction of this section, together with the certain contribution of popular fiction to the development of current literary and cultural trend, has revealed popular fiction is an integral part of the literary system and it is worth conducting more insightful research to this field. 2. The translation of popular fiction The first section of this chapter has not only examined popular fiction as a literary genre, but also investigated the characteristics of this genre, as well as its relationship with popular culture and its place in the national literary systems. The following section of this chapter studies the challenges, which popular fiction may pose to a translator during the translation procedure. This section will focus on a variety of theoretical approaches available to translators when working with the set of conventions of popular fiction. This is an attempt to demonstrate principles of translation theory, as well as the act of transfer a text from one cultural context to another. 2.1 What is translation? From the dawn of history, to exchange information has always been one of the most important activities of mankind. Thus, it has always been extremely significant to have sufficient information about what is happening in near or distant countries. The more powerful countries prefer to demonstrate their achievements in economics, military and especially arts, as music and painting have universal appeal, which affect human feelings. Literature plays an extraordinarily crucial role among arts. Unlike music and painting, which influence people of different nationalities directly through sight and hearing, literary works often face significant obstacles if their readers native tongues are different from that of the authors. Hence, translation is used as a powerful tool to help target readers and source authors overcome the barriers of language. Translation has a special place in the literary process as translated literature facilities access to the literature and culture of other nations. In fact, translation is a key to the development of a national literary process as by translating works of foreign literature, features (both principles and elements) are introduced into the home literature which did not exist there before. (Even Zohar, 1978 p.47) Hatim and Mason define translation as an act of communication which attempts to relay, across cultural and linguistic boundaries, another act of communication (which may have been intended for different purposes and different readers/hearers (Hatim and Mason, 1997 p.1). The concept of boundaries in this definition of Hatim and Mason, to some extents, is relevant to what Pym calls text belongs in his book Translation and Text Transfer. (Pym, 1992 p.101). Pym (1992) considers that a text has a place, time and original context where it is completely understood. So when a text is translated from one language into another, there are changes of values in those culturally bound elements in order to make a target audience engage with text in a similar way to its original readers. (Pym, 1992 p.102) Pym states that translation can be seen as a special kind of response to things that have been transferred or are meant to be transferred (Pym, 1992 p.18). In other words, translation is an act of moving the text belong from one context to another. It is obvious that Pyms definition is not restricted to the mechanical linguistic work of a translator but it observes translation from various aspects, which can be political situation, social context or historical period. Jacobson (1987), who believes that the meaning of any word or phrase whatsoever is definitely a semiotic fact defines translation as an interpretation a verbal sign. In his opinion, there are three types of interpreting: (Jacobson, 1987 p. 428 -429) 1. Intralingual translation or rewording is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language. 2. Interlingual translation or translation proper is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language. 3. Intersemiotic translation or transmutation is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems. Such definition of Jacobson is useful since it offers an understanding of translation within a language, as well as several languages. The intersemiotic translation (the change of one form to another) allows the role for the media in translation process. This might be of importance when taking into accounts popular fiction since several translations of this genre are made only after the successes of their screen adaptations. 2.2 The challenges for the translators of popular fiction Popular fiction, with its sets of conventions as discussed in the previous section, may pose a great challenge for translators. An initial reading of works by Marian Keyes, Cecelia Ahern, Helen Fielding, and Sophie Kinsella would suggest that the following aspects of language in popular fiction may appear challenging for the translators. 2.2.1 Phraseological Units Linguists in the Eastern European tradition have long referred to all formulaic phrases as phraseological units or phraseologisms ( Kunin, 1960; Skrypnyk, 1972; Zorivchak, 1983). The corresponding subfield of study has been designated as phraseology (the study of phrases). In the Western tradition the first comprehensive book on phraseology in English Phraseology: Theory, Analysis and Applications by A.  Cowie was published only in 1998. The term phrase in the Anglophone world is used as a rather general concept. Random House Dictionary defines it as (my highlighting): 1. Grammar. a. a sequence of two or more words arranged in a grammatical construction and acting as a unit in a sentence. b. (in English) a sequence of two or more words that does not contain a finite verb and its subject or that does not consist of clause elements such as subject, verb, object, or complement, as a preposition and a noun or pronoun, an adjective and noun, or an adverb and verb. 2. Rhetoric. a word or group of spoken words that the mind focuses on momentarily as a meaningful unit and is preceded and followed by pauses. 3. a characteristic, current, or proverbial expression On closer consideration it can be observed that the semantics of phrase in English tradition do not differ significantly from the notion of phraseologism which is defined as sustainable combination of words with completely or partially reconsidered value (Kunin, 1960 p.8) Yet, the suffix -ism indicated a more scientific approach towards studying it. The renowned Ukrainian scholar L.  Skrypnyk (1972) defines a phraseological unit (PU) as a lexical and grammatical unit of two or more components which are grouped according to a syntactical model of a sentence or a phrase. (Skrypnyk, 1972 p.17) A PU is characterized by a unified meaning and is reproduced in speech automatically. Hence L.  Skrypnyk draws attention to the defining properties of PUs: A PU is easily retrieved from the praseological corpus of the language by the speakers; The meaning of a PU is unified and cannot always be deduced from the usual meanings of its components; PU functions above the lexical level: the meaning of the phraseological unit contains other categories of thought such as judgment or assessment. V. Teliya (1998), a prominent Russian linguist who has contributed to A.  Cowies book , argues that cultural information incorporated in many phrases needs to be taken into account since phraseological units are also socially-conditioned phenomena. It is a two-way process: they reflect the common consciousness of speakers in a particular community on the one hand and frame the linguistic surrounding of that same community on the other. ( V.Teliya 1998, p.55-57) Phraseological units usually perform a specific function in a specific text situation. Similarly to any other communicative aspect in written speech, they may easily lose this function if uprooted. The following theoretical framework which was elaborated by Prof.  A.V.  Kunin (1960) describes methods applied to rendering phraseological units of a source language by means of a target one: Translating by a full equivalent when every element of the SL PU is preserved in the TL: subject and logical information, imagery, expressiveness and grammatical structure (with some slight modifications). Absolutely equivalent PUs are possible if they originate from one source (Greek mythology, ancient history or literature, Bible and so on) Some minor alterations in the structure or word order do not affect the subject and logical meaning, imagery and expressiveness. Translating by a partial equivalent with partly different components (which means partly different images); the difference between SL and TL partial equivalents shows in the structure of TL variant, in the omission/addition of a component in the TL variant, in the substitution of the component or in the generalization/concretization of the original meaning. Translating by a partial equivalent with completely different components but common expressiveness and subject and logical information; sometimes one SL unit has two or more equivalents of this kind. Translating by a partial equivalent with the same subject and logical information, but different imagery and expressiveness. Translating by a descriptive paraphrase: by single words, by free/neutral combination, by sentence-long descriptive phrase. Translating by means of a calque: copying each component or copying imagery with slightly modified componential structure 2.2.2. Culture specific word Pyms idea of text belongs mentions that any specific text belongs to a certain group of people or situation, so when translation is a complicated task due to a lack of equivalent terms between two different languages. Furthermore, Larson (1984) notices that the receptor audience will decode the translation in terms of his own culture and experience, not in terms of the culture and experience of the author and audience of the original document.(Larson, 1984 p.436-437) In other words, all meaning is culturally belonged and the response to a given text is also culturally belonged. Pym sums up the relationship between culture and translation by stating that it is possible to accept that everything we know about cultures beyond our own has come to us, has been appropriated or assimilated, through a process of transfer and translation. (Pym, 1992 p.17) Obviously, one of the most challenging issues of translation may be found in the difference between cultures. Larson (1984) observes that this difference is reflected in the amount of vocabulary which is available to talk about a particular topic (Larson, 1984 p.95). The two Bulgarian researchers Vlahov and Florin refer to this type of vocabulary as realia and define it as words of the popular language representing denominations of objects, concepts, typical phenomena of a given geographic place, of material life or of social-historical peculiarities of some people, nation, country, tribe, that for this reason carry a national, local or historical color; these words do not have exact matches in other languages. (Vlahov and Florin .1969 p.438) Baker (1992) when mentioning this category of vocabulary points out that the source language words may express a concept which is abstract or concrete, it may relate to a religious belief, a social custom, or even a type of food. and Baker calls such concepts culture-specific items (Baker, 1992 p.21) These culture specific items are referred to as cultureme in the book Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches Explained by Nord. He defines cultureme as a cultural phenomenon that is present in culture X but not present (in the same way) in culture Y. (Nord, 1997 p.34). According to Newmark (1998), culturally specific words can be recognized easily in a text since they are strongly related with a particular culture and a translator cannot translate them directly. It is of importance for a translator to be aware of such the text belongs features of what s/he is to translate and consider translation to be a process which occurs between cultures rather than simply between languages. When translating culture specific words (realia), a translator is advised to take into consideration the following factors: (Vlahov and Florin, 1980 p. 92-30) Firstly, the nature of the text and the importance of realia in the context should be taken into account. Next it is worth considering the nature of realia, its role in the source culture. Then the nature of target language, as well as the target reader, should also be paid great attention to. In terms of strategies, there are a number of translation procedures available. The following tactics are suggested by Vlahov and Florin (Vlahov and Florin , 1980 p.87-88): Transcription/ transliteration; Translation calque /half calque; Adaptation of foreign realia; Substitution by target realia; Functional analogue; Description, explanation, interpretation; Contextual translation 2.2.3 Collocation Collocation can be defined as the tendency of certain words to co-occur regularly in a given language (Baker, 1992 p.47). At one point, this has to do with propositional meaning, the meaning which is understood from the relationship between a word or an utterance and what it refers to (Baker, 1992 p.286). On the other hand, meaning cannot always account for collocational patterning. For example English speakers say to pay a visit but not to perform a visit. It can be said that the patterns of collocation are largely arbitrary and independent of meaning (Baker, 1992 p.48). The translation of collocations may be problematic, especially when it comes to culture-bound collocation. Such collocations as happy hour, Bank Holidayà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ appear quite frequently in popular fiction since they reflect everyday life and culture. Baker states that such culture-specific collocations express ideas previously unexpressed in the target language. Like culture-specific words, they point to conce pts which are not easily accessible to the target readers. (Baker, 1992 p.60-61). In the end of chapter 2 of her book In other words: a course book for translation Baker mentions these below strategies which can be used for translating collocation: Translation by a collocation of same meaning and form; Translation by paraphrase; Translation by a collocation of similar meaning but dissimilar form; Omission. 2.2.4 Speech genres Bakhtin introduces the term speech genres in his book Speech genres and other late essays. Bakhtin s idea is that each individual has their own way of using language, which is realized in the form of concrete utterance, either oral or written. The utterance produced reflects not only a situation -thematic content, communication goal style but also the compositional structure. These factors have equal role in the creation of an utterance and they are all determined by reception of an individual. (Bakhtin 1986, p. 60) In other words, it is not situation or language that vary, but the ways in which individuals put words together to describe a specific situation. This finding of Bakhtin is of importance because it may help to define the identity and origin of a person. In this way, the use of speech genres in a novel has culturally specific characteristics since a translator may have good commanding of a foreign language but still s/he may feel helpless in certain spheres of communicati on precisely because they do not have a practical command of the generic form in the given spheresà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ this is entirely a matter of inability to command a repertoire of genres of social conversation. (Emerson, 1990 p.275) Leppihalme refers to the gaps of understanding caused by an inability to comprehend speech genres in a particular situational and cultural context as culture bumps (Leppihalme, 1997 p.viii) In novels, speech genres are used as a tool to indicate the origin, cultural and educational background of a character. One of the most well-known forms of speech genres is Allusion, which is a reference, explicit or indirect, to a person, place, or event, or to another literary work or passage. (Leppihalme, 1997 p.6) As culture-bound elements, the meaning of allusion can be conveyed only by familiarity, as well as, solid understanding of source culture. According to Leppihalme, this literary device is used to call attention to ones learning or wider reading; as well as to enrich the work by bringing new meaning and association; or to characterise people, suggest thoughts or unconscious impressions or attitudes in characters; also to increase the significance of ones work. (Leppihalme, 1997 p.7) A llusion in particular, as well as speech genres in general should be treated with great care in order to preserve its purpose of use. A translator is required to have solid knowledge of the original culture in order to understand the usages and convey