Mangalore, Feb 18: The quality of a translation depends upon the quality of the translator, whose knowledge about source and target languages greatly influences on the work, said Rev. Fr Denzil Lobo SJ, the Rector of St Aloysius Institutions.
Presiding over the inaugural function of a day-long seminar on ‘Translation: A Transcreation’ organized by the postgraduate department of English of St Aloysius College (Autonomous), Mangalore on Monday, Fr Lobo said that a translation not only should be beautiful but also should be faithful to the original text.
Laying emphasis on the significance of translating the feelings of the original author, he said that even advanced computer technology could not do justice to the translation. “Human intervention is must to translate the feelings from one language to the other,” he said adding that translation is a great art which requires creativity.
Dr V Sangeetha, Associate Professor and Head in Charge, Department of English, Periyar University, Salem delivered a lecture on ‘Translation: A Global Perspective’. Dr K S Bhagavan, Retired Professor in English, Mysore University, who has translated maximum number of plays of Shakespeare into Kannada spoke on ‘Problems in Transcreating Shakespeare.’
Rev Fr. Swebert D’Silva SJ, the principal of the College and Dr A Lourdusamy, Chairman of the department also spoke. Melisa M Goveas, Assistant Professor, proposed vote of thanks. Rashmi S Gowda and AravindKispota, students of MA English, compered the programme.
Around one hundred audiences from various colleges of coastal Karnataka besides Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Goa and West Bengal including students, research scholars and academicians took part in the seminar.
Endowment lecture
The inaugural session was followed by the second annual endowment lecture in memory of Late S C Frank. Speaking on ‘Challenges of English Language Learning and Teaching in New Millennium’, Dr K S Antonysamy, Associate Professor, Department of English, Loyola College, said that there was a need to change the theoretical module of English language in classrooms.
Stating that there should be a celebration atmosphere in classrooms, he said that teachers must give importance to ‘train’ the students rather than spending time on mere ‘teaching’.
Dubbing the new generation of students as ‘self-learning millennials,’ who do not bother about the perfection in language, he said that it is a major challenge for their teachers to train the students who are adept with computers and well-versed in immediate communication thanks to the modern technology.
