Be Kind to Your Reader
In this first keynote speech of the Translation & Transmission Conference series, we hear from internationally renowned scholar and translator David Bellos on a wide range of topics including his approach to translation, uses and misuses of xenisms, translationese, translation history, and an important reminder to “be kind to the reader.” In discussing the history of translation in the western world, Professor Bellos describes two, almost simultaneous, historical origins for translation in the middle of the third century B.C.E., where, for the first time, two texts were brought from one language into another, not just rewritten, or re-encoded, re-elaborated, they actually purported to be the same book in another language. His speech is engaging and funny, as well as full of interesting historical details and examples that became a touchstone for discussions throughout the 2014 and 2017 conferences.
Event: TT Conference 2014 – Keynote Lecture
Date: October 3, 2014 – 9:00 am
Speaker: David Bellos
Topics: Accuracy, Translation, Translation Theory, Translator
David Bellos
(Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Princeton University)
David Bellos is professor of French and Comparative Literature at Princeton, where he also directs the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication. He has translated works by Georges Perec, Ismail Kadare, Fred Vargas, and many others and is also the author of literary biographies of Georges Perec, Jacques Tati, and Romain Gary. His irreverent essay on translation, Is That A Fish In Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything, was published in 2011.
