What is Translation?

Week 1

- Basil Hatim and Jeremy Munday (2004). Translation. An Advanced Resource Book. Routledge: London & New York Section A Chapter: 1 Section B Chapter: 1 - Jeremy Munday (2001). Introducing Translation Studies. Routledge: London & New York pp. 4-14

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary

Translation: 1. The act or an instance of translating 2. A written or spoken expression of the meaning of a word, speech, book, etc. in another language

1. Process 2. Product

Dictionary of Translation Studies

Translation An incredibly broad notion which can be understood in many different ways. For example, one may talk of translation as a process or a product, and identify such subtypes as literary translation, technical translation, subtitling and machine translation; moreover, while more typically it just refers to the transfer of written texts, the term sometimes also includes interpreting.

 Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone
- British English: biscuits, football, Mummy, rounders, sherbet lemons, got, dived, at weekends - American English: cookies, soccer, Mommy, baseball, lemon drops, gotten, dove, on weekends

The ambit of translation:

1. The process of transferring a written text from SL to TL, conducted by translator, or translators, in a specific socio-cultural context. 2. The written product, or TT, which results from that process and which functions in the sociocultural context of the TL. 3. The cognitive, linguistic, visual, cultural and ideological phenomena which are an integral part of 1 and 2. Hatim & Munday, 2004, p. 6

What is Translation Studies?

James S. Holmes, The Name and Nature of Translation Studies, 1972 A new discipline concerned with the complex of problems clustered round the phenomenon of translating and translations.

- Pure areas of research: 1) The description of the the phenomena of translation (descriptive translation theory)

2) The establishment of general principles to explain and predict such phenomena (translation theory) - Product-oriented DTS - Function-oriented DTS - Process-oriented DTS

Applied
TRANSLATOR TRAINING

TEACHING METHODS

TESTING TECHNIQUES

CURRICULUM PLANNING

TRANSLATION AIDS

IT APPLICATIONS

DICTIONARIES

GRAMMARS

Translation software On-line databases Use of Internet

TRANSLATION CRITICISM

REVISION

EVALUATION OF TRANSLATIONS

REVIEWS

Roman Jakobson, On linguistic Aspects of Translation, 1959

3 ways of interpreting a verbal sign: 1) It may be translated into other signs of the same language (Intralingual translation or rewording) 2) It may be translated into another language (Interlingual translation or translation proper) 3) It may be translated into a nonverbal system of symbols (Intersemiotic translation or transmutation)

Untranslatability and translatability

All cognitive experience and its classification is conveyable in any existing language. Whenever there is deficiency , terminology may be qualified and amplified by loanwords or loantranslations, neologisms or semantic shifts, and finally, by circumlocution. - screw = rotating nail (Northeast Siberian language) - electrical horsecar = horseless street car (Russian)

No lack of grammatical device in the language translated into makes impossible a literal translation of the entire conceptual information contained in the original *+. If some grammatical device is absent in a given language, its meaning may be translated into this language by lexical means. - Dual forms like old Russian constructions can be translated with the help of a numeral (e.g. two ) - What happens when translating She has brothers into a language which discriminate dual and plural? - Choice - Supplementary information (the richer the context of a message, the smaller the loss of information)

All cognitive experience and its classification is conveyable in any existing language Only poetry by definition is untranslatable, as the form contributes to the construction of the meaning of the text. Dichotomy Sense/content form/style

Examples Names

 Meaningful names - Conventional and loaded proper names (Hermans, 1988) - Fluffy Fuffi - Muggles Babbani - Dumbledore Silente - Tom Marvolo Riddle (I am Lord Voldemort) Tom Orvoloson Riddle (Son io Lord Voldemort)