Translation of Cultural References: Text Group 'Orbita' Strategies

• In Event: Liberating Translation I: Liberation from Soviet Research and Translation Traditions

Abstract

“Orbita” is a multimedia text group based in Rīga (founded in 1999), comprised of poets who primarily write in the Russian language. The texts of Orbita are characterized as being on the border between two or more languages and finding expression across multiple media platforms. Among “Orbita” projects that initiate the merging and breaking down of artistic boundaries, a special place is allocated for bilingual poetry collections as an interaction of linguistic and communicative strategies. The narrative of “Orbita” authors projects the concept of geopoetics by Kenneth White - avoiding specific localization and belonging to a particular cultural landscape as a customary orientation system, constructing intellectual maps of the mind. The intensity of “Orbita” poetic experiments increases symmetrically with the atmosphere of post-socialist liberation. In bilingual publications, experimental interaction manifests as simultaneous belonging of the text to multiple linguistic systems on one hand, and the application of the notion of untranslatability of specific national codes on the other. In this context, a distinctive functionality of “Orbita” texts lies in cultural codes serving as a “dialogic space”. In my presentation, I will focus on the translation of cultural references, the use of culture-specific lexical units and the identification of transfer principles in the original texts and translations of “Orbita” bilingual poetry collections.

Author

• Maija Burima, Daugavpils U (Latvia)