Showing papers in "Target-international Journal of Translation Studies in 2012"
TL;DR: The authors investigates the role of translation and interpreting in political discourse and illustrates discursive events in the domain of politics and the resulting discourse types, such as jointly produced texts, press conferences and speeches.
Abstract: This article investigates the role of translation and interpreting in political discourse. It illustrates discursive events in the domain of politics and the resulting discourse types, such as jointly produced texts, press conferences and speeches. It shows that methods of Critical Discourse Analysis can be used effectively to reveal translation and interpreting strategies as well as transformations that occur in recontextualisation processes across languages, cultures, and discourse domains, in particular recontextualisation in mass media. It argues that the complexity of translational activities in the field of politics has not yet seen sufficient attention within Translation Studies. The article concludes by outlining a research programme for investigating political discourse in translation.
56 citations
TL;DR: There has been a growing interest in applying socio-narrative theory to translation studies, with Baker's ideas extended and applied to several different areas of inquiry as mentioned in this paper, including a revised typology of narratives, the combination of narratological and sociological approaches, and a new emphasis on the importance of narrators and temporary narrators in the reconfiguration of narratives.
Abstract: Since the publication of Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account (Baker 2006), there has been a growing interest in applying socio-narrative theory to Translation Studies, with Baker’s ideas extended and applied to several different areas of inquiry. This article gives a brief overview of these projects, and discusses in more depth the example of my own application and development of narrative theory. This includes a revised typology of narratives, the combination of narratological and sociological approaches, an intratextual model of analysis, and a new emphasis on the importance of narrators and temporary narrators in the (re)configuration of narratives. The article ends with a brief discussion on further topics within Translation and Interpreting Studies to which narrative theory might be applied.
52 citations
TL;DR: The results of the analysis show that in general, there is indeed a standardizing trend among translations and text types with a lot of editorial control contain more standard language than the less edited text types which adds support for the idea that the differences between translated and non-translated texts are text type dependent.
Abstract: With this article, we seek to support the law of growing standardization by showing that texts translated into Belgian Dutch make more use of standard language than non-translated Belgian Dutch texts. Additionally, we want to examine whether the use of standard vs. non-standard language can be attributed to the variables text type and source language. In order to achieve that goal, we gathered a diverse set of linguistic variables and used a 10-million-word corpus that is parallel, comparable and bidirectional (the Dutch Parallel Corpus; Macken et al. 2011). The frequency counts for each of the variables are used to determine the differences in standard language use by means of profile-based correspondence analysis (Plevoets 2008). The results of our analysis show that (i) in general, there is indeed a standardizing trend among translations and (ii) text types with a lot of editorial control (fiction, non-fiction and journalistic texts) contain more standard language than the less edited text types (administrative texts and external communication) which adds support for the idea that the differences between translated and non-translated texts are text type dependent.
38 citations
TL;DR: The hypothesis that modality may exert a stronger effect than ontology � i.e. that being oral ( vs. written) is a more powerful influence than being translated (vs. original) is tested.
Abstract: Since the early 1990s, with the advance of computerized corpora, translation scholars have been using corpus-based methodologies to look into the possible existence of overriding patterns (tentatively described as universals or as laws) in translated texts. The application of such methodologies to interpreted texts has been much slower in developing than in the case of translated ones, but significant progress has been made in recent years. After presenting the fundamental methodological hurdles — and advantages — of working on machine-readable (transcribed) oral corpora, we present and discuss several recent studies using cross-modal comparisons, and examine the viability of using interpreted outputs to explore the features that set simultaneous interpreting apart from other forms of translation. We then set out to test the hypothesis that modality may exert a stronger effect than ontology — i.e. that being oral (vs. written) is a more powerful influence than being translated (vs. original).
38 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that the universals of translated language are primarily the result of a mediation process that is shared among different kinds of mediated language, rather than the particularities of bilingual language processing.
Abstract: This paper presents the results of a study investigating the hypothesis that the recurrent features, or universals, of translated language are primarily the result of a mediation process that is shared among different kinds of mediated language, rather than the particularities of bilingual language processing. The investigation made use of a comparable corpus consisting of a subcorpus of English texts translated from Afrikaans, a subcorpus of comparable edited English texts, and a subcorpus of comparable unedited (and also untranslated) English texts. The frequency and distribution of linguistic features associated with three of the universals of translated language (explicitation, normalisation/conservatism, and simplification) across the three subcorpora were analysed. The study was guided by the hypothesis that the frequency and distribution of linguistic features associated with the universals of translated language would demonstrate similarities in the two subcorpora of mediated text (i.e., the translated and edited subcorpus), as compared to the subcorpus of unmediated text (i.e., the unedited subcorpus). However, the study yields almost no evidence for a mediation effect that is shared by translated and edited language, at least not along the linguistic features investigated. There is, however, evidence for what appears to be a separate translation-specific effect, which seems likely to be more unconscious, more proceduralised and more related to the linguistic level alone. This offers some support for the hypothesis of universals of translated language that are unique to this kind of text mediation specifically. Furthermore, the findings of the study suggest that editing may involve a different kind of mediation effect altogether, which frequently remains invisible in conventional corpus-based studies comparing translated and non-translated language, and which requires further investigation.
30 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that translation studies has reached a cross-road and needs to reach out to other disciplines, taking advantage of what is being hailed by some as a translational turn within the humanities in general.
Abstract: This article is an account of the personal journey of one writer, from her first encounters in the 1970s with fellow scholars sharing an interest in translation and a sense of frustration at the anti-translation prejudices of many colleagues working in literature or linguistics at that time. The article traces the gradual rise of translation studies as an important field in its own right, but raises questions about the present state of the discipline, arguing that as translation studies has become more established, so it is failing to challenge orthodoxies and risks being left behind by the more innovative and exciting research now emerging from within world literature, postcolonialism, and cultural memory studies. I suggest that translation studies has reached a cross-roads and needs to reach out to other disciplines, taking advantage of what is being hailed by some as a translational turn within the humanities in general.
30 citations
TL;DR: Findings in neuroscience pertaining to perception, memory, and brain plasticity that have already achieved consensus in the field and that have durable implications for the ways the authors will think about translation in the future are focused on.
Abstract: The neurological mechanisms involved in translating and interpreting are one of the chief known unknowns in translation studies. Translation studies has explored many facets of the processes and products of translation and interpreting, ranging from the linguistic aspects to the textual aspects, from the politics of translation to implications from cognitive science, but little is known about the production and reception of translation at the level of the individual brain and the level of molecular biology.1 Much of this terra incognita will be explored and illuminated by neuroscience in the coming quarter century, and significant discoveries pertaining to language processing in translation will be made during the coming decade, linking observable behaviors at the macro level with knowledge of what happens in the production and reception of translation at the micro level of the neuron and the neuronal pathways of the brain.In the past two decades powerful new techniques for observing brain function in healthy living individuals have been devised. To a large extent neuroscience has become a rapidly developing field because of new technologies that make it possible to monitor the brain as it actually works, to document neural pathways, and even to track the activity of specific neurons. This article focuses on discoveries in neuroscience pertaining to perception, memory, and brain plasticity that have already achieved consensus in the field and that have durable implications for the ways we will think about translation in the future.
26 citations
TL;DR: This descriptive, exploratory paper is to identify and analyse patterns in a case study of direct and indirect literary transfer from Poland to Portugal between 1855 and 2010 to contribute to a deeper understanding of indirect translation.
Abstract: The goal of this descriptive, exploratory paper is to identify and analyse patterns in a case study of direct and indirect literary transfer from Poland to Portugal between 1855 and 2010. By doing so, the paper intends to contribute to a deeper understanding of indirect translation. Firstly, relevant information concerning the corpus is presented. Secondly, the methodological issues are elucidated. Thirdly, the results of the study are discussed in detail. More specifically, the correlations between the dependent variables (directness and indirectness) and the independent variables (author profile, translator profile, publisher profile and target text literary genre) are examined. In addition, the correlation between the occurrence of the label "(in)direct" is tested against the independent time variable. Finally, the preliminary conclusions and future research avenues are presented.
26 citations
TL;DR: The authors provide an overview of where young translation scholars who claim to take a functionalist viewpoint find themselves, what they are investigating, and which topics they consider worthy of research, but do not pretend to present an objective picture of the functionalist approach nor exhaustively cover the whole field of functionalism in translation and adjacent fields.
Abstract: Functional approaches to translation and Skopostheorie, on which many of them are based, have been around for more than thirty years now Perhaps, therefore, it is time to take stock, trying to trace the development and spread of functionalist ideas and drawing some cautious conclusions as to where the future may lie As a representative of the “second generation” and drawing on recent publications in journals and monographs on Translation Studies, I provide an overview of where young translation scholars who claim to take a “functionalist” viewpoint find themselves, what they are investigating, and which topics they consider worthy of research Offering this insider view, I do not pretend, however, to present an objective picture of the functionalist approach nor to exhaustively cover the whole field of functionalism in translation and adjacent fields
17 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the social and cultural factors that have played a role in the production, publication and reception of English translations of contemporary Chinese poetry, from the beginning of the 1980s to today.
Abstract: This essay is an exploration of some of the social and cultural factors that have played a role in the production, publication and reception of English translations of contemporary Chinese poetry, from the beginning of the 1980s to today. The aim is to link translations to the broader context, highlighting modalities and expectations of reception that have evolved within the social structures through which the translation of contemporary Chinese poetry has been circulating: the publishing industry, universities, the periodical press, public intellectual debates, and the market. The article does not try to establish if this or that expectation are either real or perceived features of the source texts. Nor does it deal with translators’ individual interpretations, their private readings. Instead, adopting a wider sociocultural approach, the analysis proposes to shed light on the industrial and commercial dimension — the public life — of contemporary Chinese poetry in English translation.
6 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued for the city as an object of translation studies, arguing that all cities are multilingual, but for some language relations have particularly intense historical and cultural significance. And they argued that a thorough investigation of translational culture between 1880 and 1939 can help to provide a nuanced understanding of the nature of literary relations which prevailed before the violence of World War II.
Abstract: In the spirit of the ‘enlargement’ of the field proposed by Tymoczko (2007), this article argues for the city as an object of translation studies. All cities are multilingual, but for some language relations have particularly intense historical and cultural significance. Translation studies can illuminate the nature and effects of these interactions. The cities of Central Europe and in particular Czernowitz offer rich case studies. A thorough investigation of translational culture between 1880 and 1939 can help to provide a nuanced understanding of the nature of literary relations which prevailed before the violence of World War II.
TL;DR: Les trous noirs de la traductologie vont de pair avec les transformations des pratiques professionnelles en traduction, ce qui ne facilite pas l'apprehension des marches.
Abstract: Les trous noirs de la traductologie vont de pair avec les transformations des pratiques professionnelles en traduction. Ces transformations suscitent l’emergence de nouvelles denominations de ces pratiques, ce qui ne facilite pas l’apprehension des marches. Dans le meme temps, la reflexion traductologique s’internationalise. Par ailleurs, le developpement des technologies continue a brouiller les manieres de produire, de distribuer et de recevoir les « textes ». Ces evolutions rapides repondent souvent a la seule logique economique, toujours ignoree cependant dans les travaux traductologiques. Apres l’euphorie des annees 1980–1990, la traductologie, longtemps alimentee par les textes litteraires canoniques et sacres, semble marquer une pause : son objet se semble plus evident, sa pertinence sociale fait question, sa fragmentation apparente apparait tantot comme un handicap, tantot comme un signe de vitalite. D’ou les six inconnues qui concluent l’article.
TL;DR: This study characterizes the translation task as schema-based, and thus prone to cognitive overload for the learner, and recommends instructional designs for load-managed translation tasks that improve problem-solving, schema acquisition, process-orientation, and metacognitive monitoring.
Abstract: Does the "expert blind spot", our "unconscious competence", lead us to undermine the effectiveness of our translation assignments? This study characterizes the translation task as schema-based, and thus prone to cognitive overload for the learner. Accordingly, schema acquisition tasks featuring reduced-goal specificity and goal-free problems for training the novice are reviewed. The argument is put forward that we need 1) to use more scaffolding to reduce cognitive load, 2) to vary task architecture for learning (including the use of planning pre-tasks), and 3) to provide diagnostic help for the student translator to attain context-independence for "high road transfer". Formats for expertise modeling are considered - reverse tasks, completion examples, and other whole-task models - as instructional designs for load-managed translation tasks that improve problem-solving, schema acquisition, process-orientation, and metacognitive monitoring.
TL;DR: The Hellenistic Greek papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1381 contains a translator's prologue that has been overlooked by translation historians despite its significance as evidence for a far more creative view of religious translation outside the confines of the Judaeo-Christian tradition as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The Hellenistic Greek papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1381 contains a translator’s prologue that has been overlooked by translation historians despite its significance as evidence for a far more creative view of religious translation outside the confines of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. This important text is described in its historical context and compared to contemporaneous Pagan and early contending Judaeo-Christian developments in sacred translation as well as to classical secular translation practices. This will provide some valuable insights into the many factors informing the ancient origins and evolution of modern expectations and concerns in the western translation community such as translatability issues, preoccupations with fidelity, rigid adherence to the source text, the translator’s invisibility and lack of creative freedom.