Companion Book for Translators and Interpreters: Automotive
It will also be at hand during the interpretation, should you need to quickly look up a term. It contains only the most frequently used automotive terminology in English and Spanish. Read more Read less. Here's how restrictions apply. Print edition purchase must be sold by Amazon. Thousands of books are eligible, including current and former best sellers. Look for the Kindle MatchBook icon on print and Kindle book detail pages of qualifying books.
Print edition must be purchased new and sold by Amazon.
Gifting of the Kindle edition at the Kindle MatchBook price is not available. Learn more about Kindle MatchBook. Start reading Companion Book for Translators and Interpreters: Automotive on your Kindle in under a minute. Don't have a Kindle? Try the Kindle edition and experience these great reading features: Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. Showing of 1 reviews. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews.
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. It includes the most common automotive terms. It has the key terms that you will need to know. One person found this helpful. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers.
Companion Book For Translators And Interpreters Medical
Learn more about Amazon Giveaway. Companion Book for Translators and Interpreters: Economically weak Lutetia Palace Compliments of En. Normal School Governor General the season Take it or leave it 3. The ink The ink is on the table What time is-it? Sender Since the revaluing of Prohibition to wood smoke En. Little deep Give a little of your Full blood En. Cycling In a blink of the eye Good appetite! In this chapter, these various communicative resources are examined specif- ically from the vantage point of the translator1 and in terms of how the effec- tiveness of activities such as reading and writing which are crucial to any act of translating can only be enhanced by a context-sensitive approach to texts.
However, overuse and the varied applications of these concepts seem to have contributed to a state of unsettling confusion regarding how the various categories might best be understood and used. With this aim in mind, a heuristic and necessarily hypothetical language processing model is discussed. There is a dialectical interrelationship between language and social structure: But what exactly is it that we textualize? What is the process part of?
- Сведения о продавце?
- French Girl Knits Accessories: Modern Designs for a Beautiful Life!
- The Memory Garden.
- Detalles del producto!
- LArt de la frugalité et de la volupte (French Edition).
- !
- Singers in the Skull.
What is it ultimately driven by? What is it ultimately intended to achieve? To answer these questions, it might be helpful to consider how textualization has gone wrong in the sample of concocted language use shown in Box 3. Yet the text does not make sense i. The text is conceptually fragmented and underlying logical connectivity is lacking. In Sample 1 Box 3. She went to work, mixing up the six-ten with two parts of , and dabbing the mixture through 6 ezimeshes, and so on.
She went to work, mixing up the six-ten with two parts of , and dabbing the mixture through 6 ezimeshes. He managed to get into a good position, just kissing the cushion. She pulled down the menu, chose the command by using the cursor, then quit. She said to knead well, roll into a ball and leave overnight to rise. Instead, he mulched well, turned over and left the beds to settle. Good progress made, but concentration sometimes rather poor; more effort required if success is to be expected in the important months ahead. Translation studies has followed suit and, according to Hatim and Mason In posing such questions, many translation scholars e.
Baker ; Fawcett have taken traditional register analysis to task, and the general trend has veered more towards texts seen as the minimal units of translation. Before we deal with the various revisions which register theory has undergone. Since the s, it is perhaps instructive to cast a glance at the related issue of text type and text function. This is a distinction recognized by a function- alist trend which questions the validity of the register-inspired equivalence paradigm of the time and is best represented in the early stages by the work of Katharina Reiss and Hans Vermeer and by skopos theory.
The skopos idea relies on key concepts in pragmatics, such as intention and action. Two basic assumptions are entertained: Interaction is determined by its purpose. Purpose varies according to the text receiver. Such a framework for translator decisions is governed by a number of factors, both textual and contextual. One such is audience design, which accounts for the way a target text is intended to be received. This largely determines which translation strategy is most appropriate. Different purposes may be served by different translation strategies: But who actually decides what the skopos of a particular translation is?
Nord , have tended to concentrate on the notion of the purpose of the transla- tion to hand as stipulated by the translation commission. This gave rise to the notion of a text typology, originally intended by Reiss as a set of guidelines for the practical translator. This orientation, treated cursorily by early register theory and practice, must be recognized as vitally important: Such distinctions must therefore be more widely and explicitly adopted as the basis of the selection, grading and presen- tation of translator training materials in areas such as specialized translation of academic or business communication.
A notable attempt in this direction is the model of translation quality assessment proposed in the late s by transla- tion theorist and linguist Juliane House see also Chapter 2. From this per- spective, conveying information, ideas or experience i. Equivalence is now established on the basis of: Language function captures how language is used to convey information, express feelings, persuade, etc.
In such typologies, however, language function tends to be equated with text function. In other words, the assumption is entertained that the text is a longer sentence, and what applies to sentences individually can apply to entire texts. The way texts function may thus be more helpfully seen along a cline between two extremes. Nevertheless, the possibility that one function of language or of text might be predominant in a given sequence of sentences is not ruled out.
In her original analysis, House chose her translation data from texts which were either predominantly ideational essentially referential or predomi- nantly interpersonal non-referential in function. Eight translations were analysed and found to have been dealt with in different ways. The analysis revealed that two kinds of translation method were at work: Covert translation is a mode of text transfer in which the translator seeks to produce a target text that is as immediately relevant for the target reader as the source text is for the source language addressee.
Functional equivalence see Chapter 2 is the goal, and anything which betrays the origin of the translated text is carefully concealed. Examples of texts which lend themselves to a covert translation strategy include adver- tising, journalistic writing, technical material and, interestingly, a great deal of Bible translation.
Historic sermons, great political speeches and a substantive body of good literature provide us with examples of this kind of overt translation strategy at work. To date, the debate on these and related issues has been far from conclusive. Such an examination would most probably reveal that the parallels between the various schemes outlined above are so striking that any differences are likely to be merely a matter of focus. To capture this, two options seem to be available to the language user: In this way, texts would be intended to serve a particular contextual focus and would be accepted as such, a situation managed by the competent language user on the basis of knowledge of texts in interaction.
We immediately recognize a counter-argument when one unfolds e. The real purpose of the meeting, however, is to salvage the cohesion of the organization; see Hatim and Mason This recognition builds on our ability to recall other instances of counter-argumentation we have come across and stored in some textual repertoire. In addition to intentionality, acceptability and intertextuality, a number of other standards must be met for a sequence of sentences to attain the status of a well-formed text.
For example, there are the minimal requirements of cohesion and coherence. In this typology, informative, expressive and opera- tive intentions or rhetorical purposes and functions or the uses to which texts are put , are said to have a direct consequence for the kind of seman- tic, syntactic and stylistic features used and for the way texts are structured, both in their original form and in the translation. Furthermore, Reiss posits a correlation between a given text type and translation method, to ensure that the predominant function of the text is preserved in translation.
Thus, what the translator must do in the case of informative texts is to concentrate on establishing semantic equivalence and, secondarily, on connotative meanings and aesthetic values. In the case of expressive texts, the main concern of the translator should be to try and preserve aesthetic effects alongside relevant aspects of the semantic content. Hatim and Mason This text typology has certainly avoided the pitfalls of text categorization suffered by earlier approaches, which lean heav- ily towards the strict end of objective criteria for assessing translation quality.
Within the limitations of mode, textualization is still restricted to: The visitor will …, The visitor will … is an acceptable genre norm in Arabic but is shunned in English. At the level of genre, language tends to serve a particular focus on norms surrounding how certain communicative events are conventionally dealt with e. In these ritual- istically sanctioned text formats, the intention is certainly to serve a range of rhetorical purposes say, to inform, etc , which is a requirement that must be met for language to function properly at all.
Like text shifts, genre shifts in translation are also relatively common, at times leading to serious language use and translation errors. The solution to this kind of problem must thus obviously be to provide the translator with genre-based experience. In practice, no text can remain in such a state of relative isolation from the facts of socio-cultural life. To be closer to the life world of the language user and to communicate anything meaningful regarding social, cultural or political issues, texts must involve more than organization and mapping procedures or simply the need to uphold conventionality.
For example, the only way to appreciate what wide-ranging actually means in the above example reproduced in Box 3. This is a set of lexicogrammat- ical resources which must be heeded and assessed for functionality by the translator. These are subtle layers of text meaning that need to be preserved in translation. How could he, on the one hand, mistake his wife for a hat and, on the other, function as a teacher at the Music School? Features of texts thus con- spire with discursive practices and collectively act on society and culture.
Descripción del producto
This is how texts of the interactive kind illustrated above are likely to be highly evaluative: What had been funny, or farcical, in relation to the movie, was tragic in relation to real life. Discursive processes are therefore both interactive and procedural, informed by such basic pragmatic-semiotic premises as: And as we have seen in the discussion of genre above, generic integrity is another vulnerable area of text reception and production, and must be upheld unless there is a good reason to do otherwise.
It is in this way that language becomes an ideological tool, ultimately serving as the voice of societal institutions. Appreciate the role of discoursal factors as the driving force behind register, text and genre shifts in the way translations are made and received, it is pertinent at this point to pose the question: Critical text linguistics can certainly help answer some of these questions. The study outlines the pitfalls of a translation in which faith- fulness is exclusively shown toward the target language and culture.
To mimic the dominant discourse of English, Tagore winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in would translate his own work, changing not only the style of the original but also the imagery and tone of the lyric. An entirely different register emerges, matching as closely as possible the target language poetics of Edwardian times. This was not to survive the onslaught of time, and, in the words of Sengupta ibid.: That was when he began to lecture against nationalism, thus challenging an important Orientalist superstructure, and the master—servant relationship with which he had imbued his poems was no longer there.
Manipulating texture and consequently shifting register and overall prag- matic effects is thus always heavily implicated in the kind of discursive practices which drive ideologies. In a study in the same collection of papers as that on Tagore, Piotr Kuhiwczak discusses a form of manipulation not intended to protect the reader from an indigenous ideology as Tagore tried to do , but mainly to protect the reader from a poetics.
These are textual manifestations which only a form of discourse analysis relying on a richer cultural dimension would adequately uncover. Finally, a study by Canadian translation theorist and cultural analyst Donald Bruce is particularly noteworthy in this regard. It might be helpful now to see this process of interaction schemat- ically represented see Figure 3.
It is discourse that is shown to enjoy a privileged status: Genres, on the other hand, are conventionalized communicative events and, in tandem with texts, serve as vehicles for the discursive expression of ideologies and value systems. That is, since the overall aim of such structural and textural designs is always to convey a set of attitudes, the way texts are put together in sequences within particular prose designs is never innocent. Discourse- and register-based analysis assists in uncovering and understanding the attitudes conveyed and, when used in translation practice, is a valuable tool in enabling these attitudes to be communicated appropriately in the target text.
Nevertheless, many of the concepts discussed in this chapter are still as relevant for oral texts as they are for translated texts. Six of the most representa- tive models are described here in chronological order for a more complete account of such models, see Hurtado Albir Understanding is conceived of as an interpretive process geared to the generation of sense. Additionally, ITT highlights the role of memory in the process of understanding and distinguishes between imme- diate memory, which stores words for a short time, and cognitive memory, which stores the whole range of knowledge possessed by an individual.
The end product of the process of understanding is called sense and it results from the interdependence of all linguistic and non-linguistic ele- ments which play a role in the process. Understanding among translators and interpreters is different from understanding among normal receptors, since it is a deliberate and more analytical act of communication which requires the apprehension of sense in its totality so that sense matches the intended meaning vouloir dire of the sender of the source text.
For ITT, sense is the non-verbal synthesis resulting from the process of understanding. Therefore, ITT postulates the existence of an intermediate phase of deverbalization resulting from the phase of understanding and the beginning of the phase of re-expression. This phase plays a fundamental role in the scope of ITT since it considers that re-expression is achieved through deverbalized meaning and not on the basis of linguistic form. In a similar way to the process of understanding, re-expression involves the whole cognitive apparatus of an individual and generates an association between linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge.
This phase presupposes a non-linear movement from a non-verbal level the phase of deverbalization to verbalization in a natural language and it is considered to be similar to the process of expression in monolin- gual communication: Intended meaning is the preverbal origin of linguistic form and, therefore, of sense. In the context of translation, the intended mean- ing of the sender of the source text is the point of reference aimed at by the translator. In other words, this phase entails the process of interpreting the equivalence found in order to guarantee that it expresses exactly the meaning conveyed by the source text.
Interpretive translation unfolds as a triangular process encompassing signs, a non-verbal phase and reverbalization. Seleskovitch investigated a corpus of speeches in English and their consecutive interpreta- tions and analysed the notes taken by the interpreters. She showed that they took notes of certain elements such as numbers, lists and technical terms.
According to ITT, every translation is a mixture of both types. Once the decision to translate is taken at the level of semantic representation, the input is reprocessed by synthesizers distributed in pragmatic, semantic and lexico-grammatical levels to be encoded in a new writing system and gives rise to a target text Figure 4. He presents two models of the translation process: This last situational context is located between SC1 and SC2 and, due to its internal, mental traits, it cannot be observed directly. Information sources include long-term memory which stores cultural, physical, social schemata; discourse frames; translation-related schemata; lexico-semantic knowledge; morpho-syntactic frames , source text input and external resources reference books, data bases, native-speaker informants, etc.
Kiraly draws on the distinction between a subconscious workspace and a controlled processing centre. He insists that these do not operate in isolation and proposes an intuitive or relatively uncontrolled workspace in which information from long-term memory is synthesized with infor- mation from source text input and external resources without conscious control.
Translation problems emerge from the intuitive workspace when automatic processing does not yield a tentative translation output. According to Kiraly, these problems are then considered in the controlled processing centre and a strategy is chosen and implemented in an attempt to deal with them. In the case of a failed strategy, the translation problem can be sent back to the intuitive workspace, together with information which had not yet been taken into account.
And, if the workspace is still unable to produce an adequate solution, a tentative translation can be proposed and accepted on the basis of the inadequate information available or the element in question may be dropped and the search procedure starts again. He draws on the distinction between two complementary types of knowledge, namely declarative knowl- edge knowing what and procedural knowledge knowing how , to argue that translation is an intelligent type of behaviour to be considered from the perspective of problem-solving and decision-making and upon which other mechanisms, such as creativity and intuition, also play a role.
According to Wilss, translation is a knowledge-based activity and, as with all kinds of knowledge, it requires the acquisition of organized knowledge. In order to explain the organization of this type of knowledge, Wilss draws on schema theory Bartlett ; Neisser ; Tannen ; Spiro ; etc. Schemas are cognitive units, hierarchically structured, which support the acquisition of knowledge.
As such, the central task of cognitive approaches to translation is to investigate the way schemas operate and the type of interaction observed in knowledge-related schemas. On the other hand, Wilss argues that knowing how to make decisions and how to choose is a most relevant element in translation practice as well as in the teaching of translation see, above all, Wilss Decision-making processes are closely related to problem-solving activities a more complex and far-reaching concept.
In order to solve problems, an individual builds on both declarative and procedural knowledge. In the case of translation, this issue is much more complicated since it is a derived activity i. Building on Corbin , Wilss recognizes six phases in the decision- making process: There may be problems in each of the phases which can interrupt or delay the process of decision making.
On the other hand, the audience makes an effort to infer what is ostensively communicated on the basis of evidence provided for this pre- cise purpose. In its framework, RT also presupposes two types of use for mental representations — descriptive and interpretive; each of them refers to a corresponding type of resemblance. Descriptive resemblance establishes a correlation between an object or state of affairs in the world and a mental representation, while interpretive resemblance does this between two mental representations.
Gutt argues that, by applying the RT framework to translation, it is possible to understand and explicate the mental faculties that enable human beings to translate, in the sense of expressing in one language what has been expressed in another. He argues that, once these faculties are understood, it is possible to understand not only the relation between input and output, but also, and perhaps more importantly, the communicative effects they have on the audience.
This also applies to situations where communicator and audience do not share a mutual cognitive environment. Gutt claims that the capacity to generate meta-representations is, therefore, a cognitive prerequisite for the capacity of human beings to translate. The model presupposes a distinction between automatic and non-automatic mental operations, which consume part of the processing capacity available.
Efforts related to listening and analysing. Gile argues in favour of a probabilistic account for listening and analysing linguistic input which interacts with time constraints, attention or information treatment capacity, and short-term memory capacity. The process of understanding is non-automatic, with short-term memory information being contrasted with elements stored in long-term memory to allow for decision making in interpreting. Efforts related to discourse production in reformulation. These are similarly non-automatic with a storage rhythm heavily dependent on the pace imposed by the speaker.
In sight translation and in simultaneous interpreting with text, listening effort is replaced by reading effort. The existence of basic stages related to understanding and re-expression. The need to use and integrate internal cognitive and external resources. To that extent, Kiraly points to internal and external sources of information and Alves , refers to internal and external support. The role of memory and information storage. The dynamic and interactive nature of the process, which encompasses linguistic as well as non-linguistic elements.
The non-linear nature of the process. It neither follows a linear textual progression nor is it constrained to the sequential development of its basic stages. Therefore, it allows for regressions, i. The existence of automatic and non-automatic, controlled and uncon- trolled processes. Such traits lead Hurtado Albir He considers TC as an expert system guided primarily by a strategic component. This concept became more prominent in the literature of trans- lation studies in the s and is used by some of the authors mentioned here. These proposals highlight the fact that TC consists of several components linguistic and extralinguistic knowledge, documentation skills, etc.
In addition, some authors argue that TC also entails a strategic component geared to problem solving and decision making. Pym b, , however, criticizes the componential models of TC, arguing in favour of a minimalist concept based on the production then elim- ination of alternatives. As we shall see, these aspects have been analysed from different perspectives. It has four distinctive characteristics: STC, however, operates in coordination with other subcompetences and works mainly through conscious or meta- cognitive processes, being directly geared to the maximization of interpretive resemblance.
These proposals all view TC as a particular type of expert knowledge encom- passing declarative and procedural knowledge abilities, skills, etc. These subcompetences are explained in Table 4. These proposals assume similar components for TC although they differ in their terminology and distribution in terms of sub-components. There have, however, been several attempted descriptions of TC acquisition. All these agree that TC is an acquired skill which evolves through different phases, from novice to expert knowledge levels. Harris , and Harris and Sherwood point out that there is an innate ability for natural translation which all bilingual speakers have and which would be one of the fundamental bases of TC.
In line with expertise studies, Shreve suggests that, with practice, declarative knowledge i. Building on the notion of expertise trajectory Lajoie , Shreve argues that TC acquisition can be developed differentially, depending on variations in how further practical experience is acquired. In this way, expert translators are able to integrate procedurally, conceptually and contextually encoded information into a coherent whole to encompass higher levels of meta-cognition.
Shreve suggests that TC should be analysed in the scope of expertise studies which have shown that expert performance: Therefore, it would seem that studies into TC need to establish a closer dialogue with expertise studies in an attempt to identify common and different cognitive patterns between expert translators and other kinds of experts. This kind of research allows for the gathering of data on translation processes and translation competence and thus enables their study from an inductive perspective.
As far as written translation is concerned, some of the research topics are: Most of these studies correlate them with quality assessment of the product of their translations. As far as interpreting is concerned, research has been carried out on the ear—voice span and the temporal distance between speakers and interpreters, the speed of reformulation, the role of anticipation, segmentation of ST input, pause analysis, neurophysiologic aspects memory span, attention, etc. Some studies added other techniques of data collection, such as questionnaires, video, inter- views, etc.
TAPs have been used in translation process research for a disparate series of case studies involving different types of subjects language students, translation students, bilinguals, professional translators and other language professionals , different language combinations and directionality direct or inverse translation , and different topics aspects of problem-solving and decision-making, the role of creativity, etc. However, TAPs proved to be problematic in translation process research for many different reasons, the strongest objection being that they showed what the subjects believed to have happened during the translation process and not necessarily what actually occurred.
Subjects also knew that they were being observed and performed two tasks simultaneously translation and verbalization. However, due to the lack of other tools for data collection, TAPs remained as the main source of process-oriented information until the late s. During this period, samples used in research were not always represen- tative of the performance of professional expert translators since they quite often used language or translation students.
Experimental designs lacked systematization and clear objectives, used small samples case studies and, therefore, were unable to allow for generalizations. Therefore, as shown by Fraser , the picture emerging from those studies was quite varied and results could not be generalized. These studies were carried out by researchers from other disciplines, such as psychology and psycholinguistics.
They focused, among others: This second phase placed empha- sis on multi-methodological perspectives, namely triangulation. Research into written translation focused on issues concerning, among others: The main instruments used were TAPs, interviews, questionnaires and psycho- physiological measurements. In the late s, research gained renewed impetus with the spread of computers Neunzig a, b and the devel- opment of different software packages: It enables researchers to view other computer screens linked within the same network and to generate recordings which can be analysed at a later stage.
By means of software which analyses the recordings of gaze patterns pro- vided by eyetrackers, it will be possible to synchronize eyetracking data and keystroke data, which will be accessible in xml or cvs formats for subsequent statistical analysis. Additionally, a new version of Translog, called Premium Edition, will fully integrate eyetracking information with the logging of text production. Other research strands based on modern techniques used to investigate brain activation are represented, among others, by electroencephalography EEG Kurz , etc.
Among the methodological problems they highlight are: There are also studies on method- ological issues aimed at helping researchers deal with methodological problems in experimental research Gile ; Neunzig ; Williams and Chesterman ; Gile and Hansen ; Neunzig and Tanqueiro ; etc.
The major problem faced by empirical-experimental research is precisely the validation of its own instruments of data collec- tion. Translation studies lacks such a tradition. Therefore, it needs to design its own instruments for data collection ques- tionnaires, standard charts, etc. This would then allow researchers to carry out studies with a much greater power of generalization. In short, cultural differences. There are three interrelated problem areas. Originally, culture was simple. It referred exclusively to the humanist ideal of what was civilized in a developed society the education system, the arts, architecture.
Then a second meaning, the way of life of a people, took place alongside. With the development of sociology and cultural studies, a third meaning has emerged, related to forces in society or ideology. Hence, also, the way culture is acquired varies according to theory. For the humanists, culture is technically learnt through explicit instruc- tion. Anthropologists believe that culture may be learned through formal or unconscious parenting, socialization or other inculcation through long- term contact with others.
It then becomes unconsciously shared amongst the group cf. When it is acquired, it is through the subliminal and enforced norms of, for example, capitalist and colonialist action. Second, there is a fairly clear historical division between those who perceive language and culture as two distinct entities, and those who view language as culture.
Others, such as Nida All models, according to Bandler and Grinder , make use of three principles: His views coincide with many professionals Katan Yet, as others have noted, context is not always important. Yet what Hall Chapter 4 operates on the same principle. He studied the inhabitants of the Trobriand Islands and their language, and noted that he would have to make a number of changes in translating their Kiriwinian conversations into English.
He used the following literal translation as an example: A version for outsiders might have sounded something like this: In crossing the sea-arm of Pilolu between the Trobriands and the Amphletts , our canoe sailed ahead of the others. When nearing the shore we began to paddle. We looked back and saw our companions still far behind, still on the sea-arm of Pilolu. Halliday and Hasan Malinowski noted the use of two words in particular: But as Halliday and Hasan The labelling of the frame e.
The logical levels serve to introduce one dimension of the system, dividing aspects of culture the iceberg into what is visible above the waterline , semi-visible and invis- ible Figure 5. A further, sociological, dimension may be described as operating on the iceberg itself. The extent to which a translator should intervene i. Translation scholars tend to focus on the more hidden levels, while practitioners are more concerned with what is visible on the surface Katan The focus is on the text, dressed adapting Newmark in its best civilized clothes of a particular culture. This is what Newmark The chapter head- ings in Translators through History Delisle and Woodsworth give us an idea of what is involved: Clearly, we need to be aware of the difference between the utility of the resources available for a translator and the slavish use of any one irrespective of context or translation purpose.
The aim is to slide in an extra term or two which will cue readers to enough of the context, often through a local analogy, to guide them towards a more equivalent cognition. Newmark, amongst others e. Nida , sug- gests the need here for componential analysis to analyse the semantic proper- ties, connotations or culture-bound components of terms in the SL and the TL. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire and Dundee have been phoning in Rowling a: Today they go to Puglia or New York.
Americans, however, still prefer Apulia. So the translator will always need to check how recognized the exoticism is. So, premier ministre and presidente del gobierno are French and Spanish cultural equivalents of prime minister, even though their powers and responsi- bilities are not exactly the same. And the same goes for equivalent idioms.
The fact, though, that partial or even complete equiv- alents exist does not in itself mean that assimilation or domestication is the best translation strategy. Like all the other procedures above, they form part of the resources available from which a translator may choose. In fact, Akira Mizuno in Kondo and Tebble, , a practising broadcast inter- preter in Japan, states that translation of popular culture presents one of the greatest challenges to Japanese broadcasters.
Wolf ; but see Tymoczko Intervention at this level focuses on the skopos of the translation Vermeer , and tailoring the translation according to reception in the target culture. So, cultures, here, are plural, and texts require mediating rather than conduit translation. The contact was made by full name and full address. The introductory statement is too direct, personal and accusatory. Bentahila reports on a study of university students Tetouan, Morocco who used a similar more personal and emotive style to write a letter of application for study grants in the UK.
Optimum relevance clearly comes from another local norm: Clearly, texts with a persuasive function, as above, must be manipulated if they are to function persuasively in the target culture. The fact that he does not mention translators is striking but belies a fundamental issue: If there is understanding of the formal level of culture, it will usually be an ethnocentric one Bennett , ; Katan Useful technically oriented communication preference models are now becoming available, thanks to the study of contrastive rhetoric Connor Also, as descriptive translation studies have shown Chesterman ; Toury ; Pym et al.
At the informal level, there are no formal guides to practice but instead unquestioned core values and beliefs, or stories about self and the world. However, not all interculturally-aware translation scholars agree with this form of active distortion of the form.
For Venuti a , the main issue is exactly the opposite: Un ristretto, doppio, caldissimo, — disse al cameriere. This will allow the readers and, in reality, the barman too to add the politeness from their own expectancy frame: This solution allows the readers to glimpse, from the safety of their own environmental bubble, something of the foreignness of Italian directness in projected requests — without distorting the illocutionary intent. In so doing the reader is likely to experience a richer perlocutionary effect, and will have begun to learn something new.
At this level of culture, no word is entirely denotative. Their free-association experiment demonstrated that Americans related United States to patriotism and government while Mexicans associated Estados Unidos with exploitation and wealth. Insiders have large funds of special information about other relevant claims, received opinion, and previous positions of the writer, in addition, they have an interest in the matter under discussion: The values and beliefs that form the basis of the subconscious rules can be teased out in two particular ways, emically and etically.
Adapted from Wierzbicka In a study of insurance brochures offered by banks in Britain and Italy, Katan analysed the frequency of words that logically indicate ori- entation alternatives, as outlined by Hofstede , There are two other fundamental differences compared to the pure anthro- pological model.
Instead individuals will have many cul- tural provenances. Cultures are seen to be variously privileged or suppressed, and individuals will negotiate a position within a set of complex cultural systems jockeying for power. Within translation studies, scholars drawing on polysystem theory e. Bassnett and Trivedi and narrative theory e. Baker all share this assumption. Secondly, the system in which the translator works is itself under question as is the validity of cultural relativity.
Harwood are clear cases in point. A cultural mediator is a person who facilitates communication, understanding, and action between persons or groups who differ with respect to language and culture. The role of the mediator is performed by interpreting the expressions, intentions, perceptions, and expectations of each cultural group to the other, that is, by establishing and balancing the communication between them.
In order to serve as a link in this sense, the mediator must be able to participate to some extent in both cultures. Thus a mediator must be to a certain extent bicultural. Of course, Hatim and Mason and Baker , amongst others, are entirely correct to suggest that mediators feed their own and are fed knowledge and beliefs into the processing of the texts. It is a logical levels table that asks at each level what it is that is going on within the context of culture and in that particular context of situation.
What is the purpose of assumptions, Beliefs about the translation? The third and fourth columns consider the source and target texts, con- texts of culture and situation, and show which aspects of culture are relevant at each level. To a large extent, the table synthesizes the discussion of the iceberg and the forces acting on it. Moving away from technical culture to the formal, the mediator becomes concerned with appropriacy: Hence the need to mediate.
The etic approach will be the result of ideally objective and generalized empirical study. Its use was subsequently outlawed in South Africa. Imagine you are asked to translate, for publication in that country, an historical document from the pre-apartheid era which contains the word. Should you write it, gloss it, omit it or replace it with something else — and if so, with what, with another derogatory word or some blander superordinate term? Are you not duty-bound to respect the authenticity of the historical record? Would you have any qualms about using the word if the translation was meant for publication outside South Africa?
In Germany and Austria, denying the Holocaust is forbidden by law.
Sigue al autor
Deckert was taken to court and eventually convicted. Was this morally right? The examples from Kruger and Pym are real enough, and they involve, apart from legal issues, moral and political choices that translators and interpreters make. Traditional work on translation was not particularly interested in these issues. A broadening of the perspective became noticeable from roughly the s onwards. To get an idea of the kind of change that is involved, a quick look at interpreting will help. Over the last ten years or so interpreting studies have been transformed by the growing importance of community interpreting, which, in contrast to conference interpreting, usually takes place in informal settings and sometimes in an atmosphere of suspicion, and is often emotionally charged.
The interpreter in such an exchange may well be untrained, and have personal, ideological or ethnic loyalties. Situations like these cannot be understood by looking at technicalities only; they require full contextualization and an appreciation of the stakes involved. If traditional translation criticism rarely went beyond pronouncing judge- ment on the quality of a particular version, functionalist studies Nord pursued questions such as who commissioned a translation or what purpose the translated text was meant to serve in its new environment see Chapter 3.
Descriptivism Hermans , ; Lambert ; Lefevere ; Toury worked along similar lines but showed an interest in historical poet- ics and in the role of especially literary translation in particular periods. Individual translators could differentiate themselves from their colleagues and predecessors by manipu- lating these grids and, if they did so successfully, acquire cultural prestige or, with a term derived from Pierre Bourdieu, symbolic capital Bassnett and Lefevere More recent studies have taken this line a step further and show, for example, how translation from Latin and Greek in Victorian Britain, the use of classical allusions in novels of the period, and even debates concern- ing metrical translation of ancient verse, contributed to class-consciousness and the idea of a national culture Osborne ; Prins It contained postcolonial and feminist chapters alongside pieces on translation in oral traditions and the literary politics of translator prefaces in Canada.
It made the point that translation, enmeshed as it is in social and ideological structures, cannot be thought of as a transparent, neutral or innocent philological activity. Functionalism and descriptivism asked who translated what, for whom, when, where, how and why. Adopting the point of view of the practising translator faced with continually having to make decisions about whether or not to accept a commission, what style of translating to pick and what syntactical structures and lexical choices to put down in sentence after sentence, researchers found in the notion of translation norms a useful analyt- ical tool.
Norms could be understood as being both psychological and social in nature. They were a social reality in that they presupposed communities and the values these communities subscribed to; they were psychological because they consisted of shared and internalized expectations about how individuals should behave and what choices they should make in certain types of situation. He also pointed out the relevance of the concept: Others subsequently improved the theoretical underpinning by invoking the interplay between translator and audience Geest ; Hermans ; Nord Norms possessed a directive character that told individuals what kind of statements were socially acceptable; thus, making the desired choices would result in translations deemed by the relevant community to be valid or legitimate, not just as translations but as cultural texts.
In this sense norms functioned as problem-solving devices. Andrew Chesterman a, b related norms to professional ethics, which, he claimed, demanded a commitment to adequate expression, the creation of a truthful resemblance between original and translation, the maintenance of trust between the parties involved in the transaction and the minimization of misunderstanding. Pym himself has written at length on ethical aspects of translation a, , , Focusing, like Chesterman, on professional translators, Pym sees them as operating in an intercultural space, which he describes as the position of the skilled mediator whose business it is to enable effective interlingual communication.
The ethical choices which these intercultural professionals make extend beyond translation to language facilitation as such. For example, Pym argues, given the expense of producing translations over a period of time, the mediator may advise a client that learning the other language may be more cost-effective in the long term. The idea of translators as not so much hemmed in by norms as actively negotiating their way through them and taking up a position in the process, is helped along when the translator is seen as re-enunciator Mossop and especially Folkart In this view translators do not just redirect pre-existing messages but, giving voice to new texts, they cannot help but intervene in them and, in so doing, establish a subject-position in the discourse they shape.
At the same time, the translator as re-enunciator and discursive subject in the text also brings on questions of responsibility and accountability, and hence ethics. A decisive shift of emphasis in translation studies may be discerned from this. A number of recent studies have focused on the role of translators in the context of cultural change, political discourse and identity formation in a variety of contexts for a sampling: Jeremy Munday has harnessed critical discourse analysis and the linguistics of M. Halliday to analyse the ideological load of translated texts. As early as the s Antoine Berman linked literary translation with ethnocentrism and otherness.
Berman saw it as an ethical imperative to counter what became known as the violence of ethnocentrism, the imposition of the conventions and values of the translating culture on imported texts, with the effacement of their cultural difference as a result. His remedy was to advocate a word-for-word translation that would respect the original in its radical alterity. Venuti, too, speaks of an ethics of difference, but adds a political and ideological dimension.
English is primarily a donor, not a receptor language. Many languages translate extensively, and mostly from English. Even when they also translate from other languages, English tends to account for a large proportion. A relative dearth of translations in countries already averse to learning foreign languages signals, and in turn fosters, a lack of openness to cultural diversity and especially to the very different modes of thinking and expression contained in texts that have grown up in other tongues. But there is another factor.
Fluency here means the tendency to render translations indistinguishable from texts originally written in English. Fluently translated texts make easy reading because they con- form to familiar patterns of genre, style and register. The ease of reading however comes at a cost. It erases the otherness of the foreign text, and this domestication — the term is aptly chosen, suggesting both smugness and forcible taming — has harmful consequences.
Its main ideological consequence is that it prevents an engagement with cultural difference because foreign texts, whatever their origin, are uniformly pressed into homely moulds. But this very discretion, Venuti argues, locks translators collectively, as a professional group, into an economically disadvantageous position. Literary translators in particular — the main group Venuti is talking about — may be underpaid and routinely overlooked in book reviews or on the title pages of translated books, but they only have themselves to blame for their lack of clout and bargaining power.
Their willingness to remain invisible in their texts renders them socially invisible as well. The inspiration is drawn from Schleiermacher, Lewis and Berman, but Venuti has more strings to his bow than the dogged liter- alism that Berman was after. He realizes, though, that literature has only a lim- ited reach and that defamiliarization needs to be practised with caution if the reader is to continue reading.
Spivak wants the translator to go beyond transferring content and to surrender instead to the original, entering its textual protocols and retaining the intimacy of that encounter in a literal English version. For all the theoretical sophistication of her discourse, Spivak ends up evoking the traditional association of translation with inadequacy and loss; she admits that she never teaches texts she cannot read in the original. Thick description seeks to provide in-depth accounts of cultural practices on the basis of detailed contextualization — the line taken also by New Historicism, for instance, and, in translation studies, by research into community interpreting see Chapter 8.
They argue that if creative translation is a cultural practice, so is academic work. Research and teaching, like the production of wayward translations, are meant to make a difference in a social, political and ideological sense. This interventionist line, and the ethical issues it throws up, has been a constant theme in the study of translation since the s. It is at its most outspoken in feminist and postcolonial approaches. Broadly speaking, the feminist engagement with translation has been concentrated on four areas Flotow ; Simon Women, by and large, were not meant to participate in public discourse but sometimes they could translate, as a form of secondary speaking.
Some women even felt more comfortable translating than writing in their own name Stark Another line of enquiry has traced the historical and ideological con- struction of translation and its remarkable correlation with traditional gender constructions. The parallel works both ways, as it puts both women and translation in their place. The translation of gendered language, a third area of interest, has exercised researchers and translators alike.
The most controversial area of work has been the practice of feminist trans- lation and criticism. Feminist critics have turned in particular to the textual strategies and self-positionings by female translators such as Aphra Behn, and to translations of female authors, from Sappho to Simone de Beauvoir. The Beauvoir case is instructive.