ABSTRACT

This chapter describes a course that explores the relations between translation studies and the study of folklore. The focus is the translation and adaptation of verbal folklore materials. The instrumental model of translation has its counterpart in treatments of folklore as anonymous and freely available for rewriting, detached from the cultural and political contexts in which proverbs are spoken, songs are sung, and tales are told. Native American narratives in English illustrate the effect of dominance and subordination on the representation of a people. Thus students take into consideration the cultural and political hierarchies in which translation and adaptation can position folklore and how the impact of those hierarchies might be mitigated or preempted. The chapter examines the concept of genre in the two fields. The course studies three oral genres, proverb, folktale, and epic, although other genres are added by pointing students to online performances on YouTube, Vimeo, and Ustream.