Week 2: Translation and

interpretation studies
BY: ELLA YUZAR
Today’s Main topics
What is translation?
What is translation studies?
Why translation studies becomes popular ?
 translation n. 1 the act or an
instance of translating. 2 a written
or spoken expression
What is
Translation? of the meaning of a word, speech,
book, etc. in another language.
(The Concise Oxford English
Dictionary)
Dictionary of Translation Studies (Shuttleworth and
Cowie 1997:181) and Munday 2016
Translation today has several meanings:
(1) the general subject field or phenomenon (‘I studied translation at
university’)
(2) the product – that is, the text that has been translated (‘they
published the
Arabic translation of the report’), centres on the concrete translation product
produced by the translator.
(3) the process of producing the translation, otherwise known as
translating. focuses on the role of the translator in taking
the original or source text (ST) and turning it into a text in another language (the
target text, TT). (‘translation service’).
Definition of translation according to Munday (2016)

The process of translation between two different

written languages involves the changing of an
original written text (the source text or ST) in the
original verbal language (the source language or
SL) into a written text (the target text or TT) in a
different verbal language (the target language or
TL)
The traditional ST-TT
process of translation
 Simply defining what ‘translation’
means can be problematic
the potential confusion of translation with interpreting,
which is strictly speaking ‘oral translation of a spoken
message or text’ (1997:83). Yet this confusion is seen
repeatedly in everyday non-technical language use.
E.g.: the trial in the Netherlands of two Libyans accused
of bombing an American Panam passenger jet over
Lockerbie, Scotland, where Defence lawyers protested at
the poor ‘translation’ which, they said, was impeding the
defendants’ comprehension of the proceedings (reported
in the Guardian 10 June 2000).
 Cont.
Even if interpreting is excluded, the potential field and issues
covered by translation
are vast and complex.

Benvenuti! = Selamat datang = Welcome

What about the word “Hi”?

the three categories of translation described by the Russo-
American structuralist Roman Jakobson (1896–1982)
1) intralingual translation, or ‘rewording’ – ‘an interpretation of verbal
signs by means of other signs of the same language’
(2) interlingual translation, or ‘translation proper’ – ‘an interpretation of
verbal signs by means of some other language’
(3) intersemiotic translation, or ‘transmutation’ – ‘an interpretation of
verbal
signs by means of signs of non-verbal sign systems’.
(Jakobson 1959/2012: 127)
Match these examples to category!!!

intralingual translation?
The Lord of the rings
Trilogy, an epic high
interlingual translation? fantasy novel written by English
author and scholar J. R. R.
Intersemiotic translation? Tolkien, were filmed by Director
Peter Jackson
Intra-, inter-, or intersemiotic?
J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter children’s
books have been translated and
published in the USA with some
alterations. The first book in the series,
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s
Stone (Bloomsbury 1997), appeared as
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in
the USA (Scholastic 1998).
Intra-, inter-, or
intersemiotic?
Gurinder Chadha’s 2004
Bollywood Bride and Prejudice
adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride
and Prejudice.
 Intra-, inter-, or
intersemiotic?
A CHILDREN’S VERSION OF AN
ENCYCLOPEDIA
 British biscuits, football,
intralingual translation? Mummy, rounders and the
sweets sherbet lemons
interlingual translation?
became American cookies,
Intersemiotic translation? soccer, Mommy, baseball and
lemon drops.
 Translation Studies has evolved to
such an extent that it is really a perfect
What is interdiscipline, interfacing with a
whole host of other fields. The aim
translation may still be to describe translation
studies? phenomena, and in some cases to
establish general principles, but the
methods of analysis are more varied
and the cultural and ideological
features of translation have become as
prominent as linguistics.
Williams
and Chesterman (2002, p. 6–27)suggest that the richness of
the fields is describe by the areas of research
4. Multi-media
3. Translation of
1. Text analysis and 2. Translation translation
literary and other
translation quality assessment (audiovisual
genres
translation)

5. Translation and 6. Translation 8. Terminology and

7. Translation ethics
technology history glossaries

11. The
9. The translation 10. Translator characteristics of
process training the translation
profession
Why study
translation
theory?
There are four very visible ways in
which translation studies has
become more prominent.
First, just as the demand for
translation has soared, so has
there been
a vast expansion in specialized
translating and interpreting
programmes
at both undergraduate and
postgraduate level.
Second, the past decades have also
seen a proliferation of conferences,
books and journals on translation in
many languages
Third, as the number of
publications has increased so
has the demand for
general and analytical
instruments such as anthologies,
databases, encyclopedias,
handbooks and introductory
texts.
Fourth, international
organizations of translator
around the world have
also prospered.
Now it’s time for