Unit A1

What is translation?
DEFINITIONS OF TRANSLATION

Translation is a phenomenon that has a huge effect on everyday life.

Example A1.2

translation n. 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.

The first of these two senses relates to translation as a process, the second to the product.

The first sense 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). The second sense centres on the concrete translation
product produced by the translator.

INTERLINGUAL, INTRALINGUAL AND INTERSEMIOTIC TRANSLATION

Shuttleworth and Cowie llustrate the potential confusion of translation with interpreting, which is strictly
speaking ‘oral translation of a spoken message or text’. Even if interpreting is excluded, the potential field
and issues covered by translation are vast and complex. Benvenuti! may be what many people expect as a
translation of Welcome!, but how do we explain Hi! ?

In his seminal paper, ‘On Linguistic Aspects of Translation’ (Jakobson 1959/2000, see Section B, Text B1.1),
the Russo–American linguist Roman Jakobson makes a very important distinction between three types of
written translation:

1. intralingual translation – translation within the same language, which can involve rewording or
paraphrase;

2. interlingual translation – translation from one language to another, and

3. intersemiotic translation – translation of the verbal sign by a non-verbal sign,

for example music or image.

Only the second category, interlingual translation, is deemed ‘translation proper’ by Jakobson.

In the intervening years research has been undertaken into all types of linguistic, cultural and ideological
phenomena around translation: in theatre translation (an example of translation that is written, but ultimately
to be read aloud), for example, adaptation, of geographical or historical location and of dialect, is very
common

Anyway:

1. The process of transferring a written text from SL to TL, conducted by a 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 socio-
cultural context of the TL.

3. The cognitive, linguistic, visual, cultural and ideological phenomena which are an integral part of 1
and 2.
WHAT IS TRANSLATION STUDIES?

Jakobson’s discussion includes equivalence between items in SL and TL and the notion of translatability. It
received the name ‘Translation Studies’, divided into ‘pure’ Translation Studies (descriptive studies of
existing translations) and ‘applied’ studies (translator aids and translation criticism). More priority is
afforded to the ‘pure’ side, in turn considered twofold:

1. to describe the phenomena of translating and translation(s) as they manifest themselves in the world
of our experience, and

2. to establish general principles by means of which these phenomena can be explained and predicted.

Here Holmes uses ‘translating’ for the process and ‘translation’ for the product. Translation Studies has
evolved to such an extent that it is really a perfect interdiscipline, interfacing with a whole host of other
fields like philosophy or linguistics.

Unit A2

Translation strategies
FORM AND CONTENT

sense form/

Content style

The sense may be translated, while the form often cannot.

E.g.:The spoken or written form of names in the Harry Potter books often con- tributes to their meaning. In
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, one of the evil characters goes by the name of Tom Marvolo
Riddle, yet this name is itself a riddle, since it is an anagram of ‘I am Lord Voldemort’ and reveals the
character’s true identity. Think how you might deal with this form–content problem in translation into
another language. in French, the name becomes ‘Tom Elvis Jedusor’ which gives ‘Je suis Voldemort’ as well
as suggesting an enigmatic fate with the use of the name Elvis and the play on words ‘jeudusor’ or ‘jeu du
sort’, meaning ‘game of fate’. In this way the French translator, Jean-François Ménard, has preserved the
content by altering the form.

LITERAL AND FREE

The split between form and content is linked to the two ways of translating: ‘literal’ and ‘free’. The origin
of this separation is to be found for example in the Roman lawyer and writer Cicero; In Classical times, it
was normal for translators working from Greek to provide a literal, word-for-word ‘translation’ which
would serve as an aid to the Latin reader who, was reasonably acquainted with the Greek source language.
Cicero, describing his own translation of Attic orators in 46 BCE, emphasized that he did not follow the
literal ‘word-for-word’ approach but, as an orator, ‘sought to preserve the general style and force of the
language’. The literal and free translation strategies can still be seen in texts to the present day. The shoe-
cleaning machine example could be considered a literal translation of the Spanish – so literal, it remains part
Spanish! The term ‘literal’ has tended to be used with a different focus, and the result is what is sometimes
known as ‘translationese’: it’s related to translation phenomena such as interference, explicitation and
domestication.

COMPREHENSIBILITY AND TRANSLATABILITY

Such literal translations often fail to take account of one simple fact of language and translation, namely that
not all texts or text users are the same.
The problem with many published TTs is essentially one of impaired ‘comprehensibility’, closely related to
‘translatability’. Translatability is a relative notion and has to do with the extent to which, despite obvious
differences in linguistic structure (grammar, vocabulary, etc.), meaning can still be adequately expressed
across languages. To achieve this, an important criterion to respect must be TT comprehensibility.

Unit A3

The unit of translation

SYSTEMATIC APPROACHES TO THE TRANSLATION UNIT

‘Literal’ and ‘free’ strategies are linked to different translation units, ‘literal’ being very much centred on
adherence to the individual word, while ‘free’ translation aims at capturing the sense of a longer stretch of
language. In this unit we will begin to examine more systematic approaches to the unit of translation, that’s
the element used by the translator when working on the ST. It may be the individual word, group, clause,
sentence or even the whole text. It’s based on Saussure’s key concepts of the linguistic sign, defined by the
signifier and signified: the former indicates a sound-image or word, the latter a concept. So, the signifier
tree recalls the real-world signified plant with a trunk; it can be contrasted with signifiers such as bush, a
different kind of plant.

Unit A4

Translation shifts
On some international trains in Europe, there is, or used to be, a multilingual warning notice displayed next
to the windows:

Example A4.1

Ne pas se pencher au dehors Nicht hinauslehnen

È pericoloso sporgersi
Do not lean out of the window

The warning is clear, even if the form is different in each language. The English, the only one to actually
mention the window, is a negative imperative, while the French and German use a negative infinitive
construction (‘not to lean outside’) and the Italian is a statement. The small linguistic changes that occur
between ST and TT are known as translation shifts. John Catford’s definition of shifts is ‘formal
correspondence in the process of going from the SL to the TL’. The distinction drawn between formal
correspondence and textual equivalence will be crucial and relates to Saussure’s distinction between
langue and parole: langue, has to do with the linguistic system, while parole is concerned with translation as
mediation between different languages and cultures.

Then, according to the existence of these shifts, Vinay and Darbelnet analysed two methods of translation
which cover 7 procedures:

1. direct translation, so borrowing, calque and literal translation, and

2. oblique translation, which is transposition, modulation, equivalence and adaptation.

These procedures are applied on three levels of language:

i. the lexicon
 ii. the grammatical structures and

iii. the ‘message’, which is used to refer to the situational utterance and some of the higher text elements
such as sentence and paragraphs.

At the level of message, Vinay and Darbelnet discuss such strategies as compensation, an important term in
translation which is linked to the notion of loss and gain since a translation technique is used to compensate
for translation loss. The translator offsets an inevitable loss at one point in the text by adding a suitable
element at another point, achieving a compensatory translation gain. In an interpretive sense, compensation
restoring life to the TT.

Unit A5

The analysis of meaning

The study of meaning is called semantics, and for Nida it was a major practical problem because his
inexperienced translators, some of them non-native speakers of English, were sometimes confused by the
intricacies and ambiguities of the ST, especially multiple senses, figurative meanings and near- synonyms.

Nida’s two types of meaning are:

• Referential meaning (otherwise known as denotation), which deals with the words as signs or
symbols, and

• Connotative meaning (connotation), the emotional reaction produced in the reader by a word.

The key problem for the translator is the frequent lack of one-to-one matching across languages. Not only
does the signifier change across languages but each language depicts reality differently.

REFERENTIAL MEANING

For instance, the word chair is polysemous (has several meanings): as a noun, it can be an item of furniture,
and, as a verb, can mean ‘to preside over a meeting’. The word spirit also has a wide range of senses,
including liquor, determination and the ‘holy spirit’ used more prevalent in the Bible. The correct sense for
the translator is determined by the ‘semotactic environment’ or co-text.

DISAMBIGUATION – SEMANTIC STRUCTURE ANALYSIS

Task A5.1

‘We are writing to invite you to a conference. We expect you will attend.’

The incorrect use of expect instead of the more normal hope is caused because the SL term (in this case the
Spanish verb esperar) covers a wider semantic field than the English. Esperar can correspond to hope, want,
expect or even look forward to.

HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURING AND COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS

This occurs where one language has a wider range of specific terms for a given semantic field operating at
various levels. The generic term is known as the superordinate and the lower level terms as hyponyms.

CONNOTATIVE MEANING
The other area explored by Nida is connotative meaning, the emotional response evoked in the hearer. For
instance, on various occasions in St John’s gospel, the Greek word gunai is translated as woman in the old
King James Version but as mother in the New English Bible. The justification for this change is the positive
connotation of the Greek which, the translators felt, merited a similarly positive translation equivalent.

Unit A6

Dynamic equivalence and the receptor of the message

We argued that to insist on full translatability across languages and cultures is to risk being
incomprehensible. Similarly, to insist on full comprehensibility in translation is to perpetuate the myth that
there is no real difference between translation and other forms of communication. A more reasonable position
to take is perhaps to see translatability and comprehensibility in relative terms.

FORMAL EQUIVALENCE

This attitude to translatability and comprehensibility has given rise to dynamic equivalence, a translation
method that may helpfully be seen in terms of its counterpart – formal equivalence. The latter is a
relationship which involves the purely ‘formal’ replacement of one word or phrase in the SL by another in
the TL. According to Nida, this is not the same as literal translation: while literal translations tend to
preserve formal features almost by default (i.e. with little or no regard for context, meaning or what is
implied by a given utterance), a ‘formal’ translation is almost always contextually motivated: formal
features are preserved only if they carry contextual values that become part of overall text meaning (e.g.
deliberate ambiguity in the ST). So, preserving ST ambiguity is thus one legitimate use of formal
equivalence, but there are other contexts. An extreme form of this kind of equivalence may be illustrated by
St Jerome’s oft-cited injunction in the context of Bible translation: ‘even the order of the words is a mystery’.

DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCE

For a wide variety of texts, and given a diverse range of readers and purposes of translation, there is often a
need for some ST explication and adjustment, so, intervention on the part of the translator who would need
to resort to more ‘dynamic’ forms of equivalence. We opt for varying degrees of dynamic equivalence
when form is not significantly involved in conveying a particular meaning, and when a formal rendering is
therefore unnecessary (e.g. in cases where there is no contextual justification for preserving ST opaqueness,
ambiguity, etc.). The distinction dynamic vs formal equivalence (or dynamic vs structural
correspondence) is best seen in relative terms, as points on a cline. The two methods are not absolute
techniques but rather general orien- tations. In fact, what experienced translators seem to do most of the time
is to resort to a literal kind of equivalence initially, reconsider the decision in the light of a range of factors,
and ultimately make a choice from literal, formal or dynamic equivalence in the order considered
appropriate.

ADJUSTMENT

Adjustment or the gradual move away from form-by-form renderings and towards more dynamic kinds of
equivalence is thus an important translation technique. In dealing with texts that are likely to produce a
dense translation, for instance, we may opt for building in redundancy, explicating or even repeating
information when appropriate. Alternatively, we may opt for gisting (method of translation, something used
to determine if a text includes appropriate information before translating it) , a technique most useful in
dealing with lan- guages characterized by a noticeably high degree of repetition of meaning.

THE TRANSLATION PROCESS: ANALYSIS, TRANSFER, RE-STRUCTURING

Some adjustment strategies, like regulating redundancy are introduced in the last of three phases through
which the process of translation is said to pass and for which the translator:

(1) Analyses the SL message into its simplest and structurally clearest forms (or ‘kernels’)
(2) Transfers the message at this kernel level

(3) Restructures the message in the TL to the level which is most appropriate for the audience addressed.

The ‘analysis’ phase begins with discovering the so-called ‘kernels’that are basic structural elements to
which syntactically more elaborate surface structures of a language can be reduced. Kernel analysis is thus
a crucial step in the process of moving from ST to TT and they consist of combinations of items from four
basic semantic categories:

• object words (nouns referring to physical objects including human beings)

• event words (actions often represented by verbs)

• abstracts (qualities and quantities, including adjectives)

• relationals (including linking devices, gender markers)

We move from ST to TT via a phase called transfer, during which kernels are not treated in isolation since
they would already be marked temporally, spatially and logically. It is considered as a dynamic process of
‘reconfiguration’ in the TL of sets of SL semantic and structural components.

Unit A7

Textual pragmatics and equivalence

TRANSLATION PROPERLY DEFINED / EQUIVALENCE

Between the resultant text in L2 (the TL text) and the ST in L1 (the SL text) there exists a relationship which
can be designated as a translational, or equivalence, relation.

Koller advocates that it is the parole-oriented notion of equivalence (and not the langue, which concerns
formal similarity at the level of virtual language systems) that constitutes the real object of enquiry in
Translation Studies, and Equivalence is said to be fully achieved if SL and TL words happen to have similar
orthographic or phonological features. This is the ultimate formal equivalence, where a SL form is strictly
replaced by an identical TL form.

DECISION-MAKING

Achieving equivalence, then, involves a complex decision-making process for which there will always be a
‘problem’, and a number of possible ‘solutions’. So, at every stage of the translation process, choices are
made, and these obviously influence subsequent choices.

WHAT MOTIVATES TRANSLATOR DECISION-MAKING

Aesthetics

It is a subjective factor which characterise translator’s life.

Cognition and knowledge

A factor that is less subjective than aesthetics and consists of the translator’s culture and system of values,
beliefs, etc.

Commission
This raises issues of translation purpose, loyalty and conflict of interests, etc. We can now refer to this sense
of purpose specifically as ‘the purpose of the translation’, and distinguish it from the purpose of translation
(in the collective).
TEXTUAL PRAGMATICS

By far the most concrete set of criteria for effective decision-making seems to be grounded in text type.

Unit A8

Translation and relevance

FROM TEXT TO COGNITION

Cognitive-linguistic analysis of the translation process has shifted the focus from texts to mental processes,
in terms of such coherence relationships as ‘cause and effect’ which, in turn, support the process of
inferencing.

INFERENCING AND RELEVANCE

Inferencing necessarily involves context and to the relevance theoretician, context involves those
assumptions which language users mentally entertain vis-à-vis the world, e.g. the assumption that
communication is ‘intended’ to perform certain acts and that these intentions and actions are properly
signalled. They are referred to the cognitive environment in which language and situation would certainly
be important but only if they yielded the kind of explicit and implicit information which would significantly
enhance interpretation without involving the audience in unnecessary effort.

In fact, according to Minimax, the translator in choosing between a number of solutions to a given problem
ultimately settles for that solution which promises maximum effect for minimal effort. To be meaningful,
non-ordinariness of language use for example textual salience must always be communicatively motivated.
Take a phenomenon such as repetition; in such cases, it would not be significant, and the question of
contextual motivatedness does not even arise but repetition can also be functional if it is intended to serve
particular rhetorical purposes within the text.

DESCRIPTIVE VS INTERPRETIVE

The relevance model of translation employs a range of cognitive tools, An important distinction entertained
by the text user relates to two ways of using language: ‘descriptive’ and ‘interpretive’. A statement is said
to be descriptive if it is intended to be true of a state of affairs in some possible world (text brochure). On the
other hand, it is said to be interpretive if it is intended by the speaker not to represent his or her own thoughts
but those of someone else (an advert).

DIRECT VS INDIRECT TRANSLATION

This dichotomy addresses the need ‘to distinguish between translations where the translator is free to
elaborate or summarize [i.e. indirectly] and those where he has to somehow stick to the explicit contents of
the original’. Indirect translations are intended to survive on their own, and involve whatever changes the
translator deems necessary to maximize relevance for a new audience, while direct translations, guided by
a notion of faithfulness, are more closely tied to the original, a case of what we have called ‘interpretive’
resemblance.

COMMUNICATIVE CLUES

Direct translation has been likened to direct quotation, but with one important difference: while quotations
preserve both form and meaning. In relevance theory, the notion of the communicative clue is proposed as
a possible solution to the problem of inter-linguistic disparity.

Unit A9

Text type in translation

STANDARDS OF TEXTUALITY
From a textual perspective, context is seen as “A strategic configuration in which what things ‘mean’
coincides intentionally and in systematic ways with what they are used for and with whatever else is going
on in the situation”. This notion of context as purpose and function is underpinned by several standards of
textuality. Cohesion subsumes the diverse relations which transparently hold among the words, phrases and
sentences of a text.

This is linked with situationality, concerning the way statements relate to situations. Situational
appropriateness (together with efficiency and effectiveness provided by cohesion and coherence) is
regulated by the principle of informativity, or the extent to which a text or parts of a text may be expected or
unexpected. Then, the entire communicative transaction is driven by the intentionality of a text producer,
matched by acceptability; finally, intertextuality ensures that texts or parts of texts link up in meaningful
ways with other texts.

MARKEDNESS

Markedness has to be intended as salience and dynamism, situations in which language is deliberately used
in a non-ordinary way, (i.e. dynamism) that usually proves particularly challenging in translation.

TEXT-BASED INFORMATION

What is involved in ‘text-based information’ is essentially words, but according to Beaugrande ‘the word
cannot be the unit of translation’. This claim is informed by a general stance which takes text to be the
minimal unit of communication. For a pragmatic reading of text-based information it’s necessary that we
depart drastically from the surface manifestations of both form and content, i.e. from surface structure and
denotative meaning.

READER-SUPPLIED INFORMATION

Reader-supplied information is another potentially misleading term. It is best seen not as sole reliance on
form or content but in terms of ‘linguistic competence’, that in turn would relate to the individual’s ability to
operate within such macro-structures as text type.

TEXT TYPOLOGY

Texts are now classified on the basis of a ‘predominant contextual focus’ (e.g. expository, argumentative or
instructional texts) and this has enabled theorist and practitioner alike to confront the difficult issue of text
hybridization. For example, it is recognized that, while a distinction may usefully be made between so-
called expressive texts (of the creative, literary type) and informative texts (of the factual variety), texts are
rarely if ever one or the other type. It is generally accepted that, in all cases, such a categorization is
necessarily idealized and that, since all texts are in a sense hybrid, the predominance of a given rhetorical
purpose in a given text is an important yardstick for assessing text-type ‘identity’.

Unit A10

Text register in translation

we will deal with text type in terms of how it accommodates the way language generally varies as situations
vary

USE AND USER OF LANGUAGE

In dealing with the context of situation from a translation perspective, we entertain the generally accepted
socio-linguistic assumption that language use varies as its context varies. Two dimensions may be
recognized in this kind of variation: the first has to do with who the speaker/writer is, and some of these such
user-related varieties are called ‘dialects’; the second relates to the use of language, use-related varieties
(registers) that have to do with such factors as the occupation of the speaker.

INSTITUTIONAL–COMMUNICATIVE CONTEXT

The use–user dimensions essentially indicate who is communicating with whom, what is being
communicated, and how this is communicated, then the institutional– communicative focus. Together with
intentionality, and intertextuality, register mediates between language and situation (i.e. we use language
registers to access situations.

THE MYTH OF THE SINGLE REGISTER (book)

FUNCTIONAL TENOR

The reason why tenor is a particularly privileged category in register analysis is to do with the overlap
between formality and field, on the one hand, and between formality and mode, on the other. Technicality is
an important aspect of variation: the more formal the occasion, the more technical the use of language. The
overlap between tenor and mode, on the other hand, gives rise to what Gregory and Carroll call ‘functional
tenor’ (e.g. to persuade, to discipline, to inform). The participants (e.g. politician vs electorate) are now
defined not only in terms of single-scale categories such as formal or technical, but also in terms of other
aspects of interaction such as

• the informality of direct face-to-face encounters vs the formality of indirect writer-audience interaction;
• the semi-formality of the persuader vs the slightly more formal tenor of the informer (or the ultra-
formality of the lawmaker).

S E M I O T I C I N T E R A C T I O N : I D E AT I O N A L , I N T E R P E R S O N A L A N D T E X T U A L
METAFUNCTIONS

“Seeing the meaning of texts as something which is negotiated between producer and receiver and not as a
static entity, independent of human processing activity once it has been encoded, is, we believe, the key to an
understanding of translating, teaching translating and judging translations.”

This negotiation between speaker and hearer or writer and reader forms the basis

of one fairly rudimentary level of semiotic interaction. Co-communicants perceive field, tenor and mode
respectively in terms of:

• what is going on in and around the text (ideational resources);

• attitudes and assessment by speakers of what is happening around and through them (interpersonal
resources);

• how ideational and interpersonal expression acquires cohesion and coherence in a given textual
environment (textual resources).

In general terms, then, field tends to focus on certain social processes and thus serves the interests of social
institutions such as sexism and racism. Tenor, in turn, subsumes aspects of power and solidarity and thus
caters for ‘social distance’. Finally, mode concentrates on ‘physical distance’ between the interlocutors.

Unit A11

Text, genre and discourse shifts in translation

Intertextuality
Two basic types of intertextual reference may be distinguished: first, horizontal intertextuality, involving
concrete reference to, or straight quotation from, other texts

Second, effective vertical intertextuality is that which, in addition to quoting, contributes through the
intertextual reference to:

• clarity of expression and accessibility of the intention (a text matter),

• the conventionality governing this mode of political speaking (genre),

• the sense of commitment to a cause conveyed (discourse).

Allusions (also called ‘vertical intertextuality’) are more subtle than the essentially static quotative or
‘horizontal’ form of intertextuality.

GENRE SHIFTS

‘Genre’ is a conventionalized form of speaking or writing which we associate with particular

‘communicative events’. Participants in these events tend to have set goals, with strict norms regulating
what can or cannot be said within the confines of given genre settings.

TEXT SHIFTS

Text is a vehicle for the expression of conventionalized goals and functions. These are tied, not to
communicative events as in genre, but rather to a set of specific rhetorical modes such as arguing and
narrating. Text’is intended and accepted as a coherent and cohesive whole, and as such capable of realizing
a set of mutually relevant communicative intentions appropriate to a given rhetorical purpose.

DISCOURSE SHIFTS
Pursuing a given rhetorical goal in a text thus requires that the process be conducted within the confines of a
particular genre structure. This attitudinal component which exhibits a range of ideational, interpersonal
and textual values is what we shall now specifically call discourse.

DISCOURSE SHIFTS: A CASE STUDY

Focusing on Kundera’s The Joke, Kuhiwczak points out that the English translation is both inadequate and
distorted. Specifically, The Joke’s plot is not particularly complex; it reflects the writer’s belief.

Unit A12

Agents of power in translation

THE POWER TO EXCLUDE

In the context of translating or assessing translations, one sense of power involves using language to
‘include’ or ‘exclude’ a particular kind of reader, a certain system of values, a set of beliefs or an entire
culture. This can also mean that somewhere, somehow, there is some exclusion of an author (committed to
oblivion) or a translator (doomed to be invisible). The translator’s ability to exclude a reader directly and
consciously is achieved through engaging in translation procedures as ‘free’ translation, heavy glossing,
gisting, or compensation.

THE TRANSLATOR’S VOICE AS AN EXPRESSION OF POWER

Literary translators themselves have a varied view of their work, in fact they often talk about finding the
‘voice’ of the author. This ‘voice’ is difficult to pin down, but normally refers to the narrative character and
rhythm and it guides all the decision-making in the translation process. But the translator also has a voice, or
‘discursive presence’ as it is called by Theo Hermans, who argues that the translator’s voice is always
present, even if it is some- times obscured; when instead the translator feels he or she has more power, the
translating voice is much louder and this is the case with some authors who themselves are translators.

SYSTEMS WITHIN SYSTEMS

In any national language or literature, there has always been a dominant poetics and a hierarchy of
canonized texts (e.g. esteemed discourses and genres). This has invariably meant that qualities such as
originality and aesthetic excellence are valued.

REWRITING
Translation can be considered as a form of rewriting. Promoted by scholars such as Susan Bassnett and
Andre Lefevere, and this view amounts to an act of manipulation purposefully designed to exclude certain
readers, authors and ultimately translators. Central to the ‘translation as rewriting’ thesis is the notion of
image. In fact, rewriting is taken in one definition to be ‘anything that contributes to constructing the
“image” of a writer and/or a work of literature’ and this image is tied to political and literary power
structures operative in a given language, culture and society. Moreover, in translation as rewriting (and the
same no doubt applies to other forms of rewriting), two important constraints may be identified: ideology
and poetics. These manifest themselves in the way texts are consciously or unconsciously brought into line
with dominant world views and/or dominant literary structures.

Unit A13

Ideology and translation

THE CULTURAL TURN IN TRANSLATION STUDIES

The term ‘cultural turn’ in Translation Studies is a metaphor that has been adopted by Cultural-Studies
oriented translation theorists to refer to the analysis of translation in its cultural, political and ideological
context.

Anyway, ideology can still be studied, because it includes beliefs and value systems which are shared
collectively by social groups and in it the extent of mediation supplied by a translator of sensitive texts is
examined.

Cultural Studies has encompassed a much wider, interdisciplinary and problematizing field that includes
Gender Studies, post- structuralism, postmodernism and postcolonialism. Gender and postcolonialism
are the most prominent.

GENDER AND TRANSLATION

Feminist theorists and translators sought to make the female visible by examining the relationship between
gender and translation. Chamberlain applies feminist theories to traditional metaphors of translation, because
translation, along with other artistic forms of expression such as the performing arts, is considered to be
feminine. Anyway, she wants to underline how the feminine has been degraded in writings on translation so
that she writes a list of ways in which feminists can challenge and subvert the dominant male discourse. One
of these include puns, that highlight the female by mixing French and English (ex. pag. 104).

POSTCOLONIALISM AND TRANSLATION STUDIES

The other important point of contact between Cultural Studies and Translation Studies has been in the area of
postcolonialism. It is in some instances known as ‘subaltern studies’, and it is used in Translation Studies to
refer to the study of power relations between different groups or cultures including a study of language,
literature and translation. In this context, we can consider the term Interpellation, coined by Althusser to
describe the way ideology, through institutions and laws, constructs and stereotypes people as suppressed
social subjects and then seen as inferior. Just with the (re-)translation practice of postcolonialism there is the
aim to subvert the myths and identities formed under colonialism and the linguistic and political power
structure. The most famous postcolonial theorist, Homi Bhabha, whose main interest is in hybridity, also
called ‘Third Space’, characterized by never stable border cultures and always mobile migrants who exist
‘in-between’ languages and peoples and are always alien in some way, always Other.

Unit A14

Translation in the information technology era

TRANSLATION, GLOBALIZATION AND LOCALIZATION

The volume of translation conducted worldwide has increased dramatically in the last fifty years. Even
though English may have become a lingua franca of world trade, it is the increasing globalization and the
advent of the internet that have meant that promotional literature, technical manuals, webpages and all ranges
of other communication are being translated into other languages faster and faster. In commercial translation
the term globalisation is often used in the sense of the creation of local versions of websites of internationally
important companies or the translation of product and marketing material for the global market. In addition,
the growth of international organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union has made
interpreting at meetings and translation of documentation a necessity. So, for many companies, translation
has become part of what is known as the GILT business: Globalization, Internationalization, Localization
and Translation. The acronym is sometimes reduced to GIL, since in many instances the translation part is
subsumed under localization, that involves taking a product and making it linguistically and culturally
appropriate to the target locale.

THE MACHINE AND THE TRANSLATOR

Computer power is therefore being harnessed by the translation industry, but it still remains Computer-
Assisted Translation. The goal of fully automatic or Machine Translation (MT) remains elusive although
recent developments have been more promising. The first real developments in Machine Translation (MT)
took place after the Second World War, during which the first computers had been invented in the UK; Bar-
Hillel considered that real-world knowledge was necessary for translation and that this was impossible for a
machine to replicate. He felt that the goal of a fully mechanized translation was unrealistic; in fact, in his
opinion, it would be more realistic to attempt to produce machines that worked in conjunction with humans.

ELECTRONIC CORPORA AND TRANSLATION

From the 1990s onwards, a statistical approach to MT has become popular. This is based on the computer’s
analysis of statistical data from a large body of existing bilingual parallel text collections to determine the
probability of matching given SL and TL expressions. The electronic documents are called ‘corpus’ and they
are becoming increasingly used in research across the board in Translation Studies; there are now some very
large reference corpora that are available online either free or by subscription, like the large monolingual
corpora such as the British National Corpus. The initial reason for using electronic corpora in dictionary
compiling was that they provided up-to-date information on the current use of words and the patterns in
which they occurred; Of course, corpora are still a valuable aid to bilingual dictionary compilation, but there
are additional advantages when using them for research into translation.