Reviewed by Mária Koscelníková
“Writing, reading, translating, interpreting, reporting and re-telling are all activities which draw different cultures and languages together.” This is how the editors start this magnificent publication full of rich and abundant knowledge.
Languages are the means of connecting people; they reach people almost in every aspect of their life. The volume points out two significant attributes of language – diversity and power. Diversity makes people unique, through uniqueness we maintain our identity, and through language we can speak together and yet stay different. Such communication involves power, a tool which is of a great importance when applied during language communication. The volume resolves around power relations present in linguistics, translation studies and literary studies. The power of language is appearing in various environments spanning from politics, journalism, cinema and television towards services, translation, literature and teaching. The issue of power accompanies us through the whole volume, offering pleasant reading full of interesting ideas, comparisons, research methods and topics for the further research.
The volume is divided into twelve chapters, the first seven of which deal with languages, cultures and power and the latter ones with power in translations.
The conception of the first seven chapters’ shows the power of language as an issue which should be taken seriously when used in many spheres of daily life. The power of language firstly appears in Raluca Levonian’s paper, who points out how differently is power of language expressed in relation to political discourse about migration. Switching powers is a common phenomenon in legal drama researched by Adriano Laudisio who shows us shifting of power in court by using appropriate language means of court participants in various speech phases. Elena di Giovanni with her paper about educational cinema experiment in Africa presents the educational experiment in Central Africa by British colonizers by means of cinematic language. Journalism is an environment giving opportunity for using the power of language, closely researched by Cesare Zanca, whose paper provides profound study of news values in the US, UK and Italian press with an emphasis on eliteness regarding information before and after the Paris terrorist attack. Words, either spoken or written, can reach many. The issue of power then reaches masses, which can be seen in the example of a well-known Italian work, I promessi sposi by Alessandro Manzoni. Constanza Geddes da Filicaia introduces the relationship between language and power expressed in the novel which spoke to many people. The last chapter of the first thematic group of the volume researching languages, cultures and power, brings the issue of the power of feedback, with an analysis of users and their status on travel website TripAdvisor, prepared by Antonella Napolitano and Maria Cristina Aiezza. Each chapter of the first group offers a lot of examples of how power can change the meaning, how can appropriate words shift power to the other person, how the lack of knowledge gives advantage to the ones having it and many stimulating ideas suitable for the further research.
In the second part of the volume focusing on the power of translation, the authors introduce many ideas to think about. In her study, Francesca Raffi shows the intersection between language and power present in the post-war Italy, investigating the use of languages in the work Le Notti di Cabiria, looking at the struggle for power in the use of Roman dialect vs. standard Italian during Fascism in Italy. Translators have a huge power, especially when translating for specific audiences. Emilia Perez points out the power of hearing translators when choosing appropriate translation methods and solutions in translation for the deaf and hard of hearing recipients used in a Slovak film November 1989, a documentary about the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, having many challenges when deciding what to translate and what to omit when subtitling. The power is present not only in the translation process itself, but it is also possessed by the source language. Jasmina Hanić and Tanja Pavlović explore metaphor and metonymy translation on a sample of novice translators, resisting the power of source language when translating into Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. The presence of power in language is omnipresent. In the penultimate chapter, Lorena Carbonara presents the power of language in western film trailers in the sense of language occupation, pointing out empowerment and disempowerment regarding representation of Native Americans. The last chapter of Tanja Pavlović presents directionality in translation in an academic setting, pointing out the power of authorities over curriculum of translation studies, emphasizing the prejudice against L1 to L2 translation when training future translators. Each chapter of the second group shows us a lot of examples regarding translation and power and the importance of making good choices when using translation as a tool of power.
To sum up, the contributions in this volume offer us wide choice of profound topics, reading of which is very enriching. The issue of language, diversity and power is present in every chapter of this volume, showing us that people can be powerful intermediaries of information via using language, reminding us about huge responsibility when using and transferring words either spoken or written in our everyday life. The volume is full of ideas for the future research, heavily recommended for anyone with a passion for languages.