Table Of Content1
90
НАЦІОНАЛЬНИЙ ТЕХНІЧНИЙ УНІВЕРСИТЕТ УКРАЇНИ “КПІ”
ФАКУЛЬТЕТ ЛІНГВІСТИКИ
Опорний конспект лекцій з дисципліни “Теорія перекладу”
для студентів V курсу зі спеціальності “Переклад”
КИЇВ 2005
2
Автор-укладач: канд. філол. наук, доц. Захарова Людмила Миколаївна.
Конспект лекцій розглянуто та рекомендовано до друку на засіданні Ради
факультету лінгвістики згідно протоколу №.......... від ............ року.
3
Introduction
The aim of this course is to highlight the most common theories and models by both
native and foreign scientists in the field of translation in order to give students an idea of
the progress modern science has made in translation research. It is also an objective of this
course to help future interpreters and translators to better understand their translation
routine.
The discussion of translation theories and models is accompanied by some general
information on models and modeling, contains descriptions of the general principles of
translation process from Western translation theorists, common and different ways of
interpreting translation and translating process. It contains focus on rather different issues:
an introductory discussion of the nature of translation in view of foreign scientists and the
presentation of an outline model of translating. We ask the questions: 1) “What is
translation and how may we best describe and explain it?” 2) ”What would a model of
translating look like?” 3) “What knowledge and skills must the translator possess in order
to be able to translate?” i.e. how can we specify translator competence?
This course is concerned with translation, its theory and, in particular, with proposing a
new orientation to the study of translation.
4
Contents
LECTURE 1
Model. Perspectives on Translation.
Basic Approaches to Translation and Interpretation.
Main points:
1. Basic approaches to translation and interpretation.
2. Translation as intercultural communication.
LECTURE 2
Translation as a Human Activity and a Mysterious Phenomenon.
Main points:
1. Translation as a human activity and a mysterious phenomenon.
2. Ambiguity problem in translation.
3. Disambiguation tools.
LECTURE 3
Theory, Model, Algorithm - Differences and Common Features.
Main points:
1. Definitions of theory, model and algorithm.
2. Language modeling.
3. Translation as an object of linguistic modeling.
LECTURE 4
What is translation theory?
Main points:
1. The process of translation that creates the product.
2. Orientation towards different approaches to investigate the process of translation.
3. Requirements for a theory of translation.
LECTURE 5
Human Translation Theories
Main points:
1. The unit and elements of translation.
2. Transformational approach.
3. Denotative approach.
LECTURE 6
Human Translation Theories
Main points:
1. Communicative approach. The notion of thesaurus.
2. Distributional approach.
5
LECTURE 7
Translating: Modeling the process.
Main points:
1. The translator: knowledge and skills.
2. Ideal bilingual competence.
3. Expertise.
4. Communicative competence.
LECTURE 8
The process of translation.
Main points:
1. Stages of the process of translation.
2. Editing the source text.
3. Interpretation of the source text.
4. Interpretation in a new language.
5. Formulating the translated text.
6. Editing the translated text.
LECTURE 9
Types of Translation
Main points:
1. Pre-dictionary translation.
2. Formulation translation.
3. Instantaneous translation.
4. Specific skills required for interpreting “by ear” (at viva voce).
LECTURE 10
The Language of Translation
Main points:
1. The level of lexis.
2. Sentence level.
LECTURE 11
The Language of Translation
Main points:
1. Discourse level.
2. The level of variety.
3. Elaboration on vocabulary exchange as a method of studying the language of
translation.
LECTURE 12
Meaning. Word-meaning.
Main points:
1. Reference theory.
2. Componential analysis.
6
3. Meaning postulates.
LECTURE 13
The Thesaurus.
Main points:
1. Lexical and semantic fields.
2. Denotation and connotation.
LECTURE 14
Sentence-meaning.
Main points:
1. Relations of words and sentences to one another.
2. Utterance, sentence and propositions.
LECTURE 15
Text and Discourse. Types of Context and Contextual Relationships.
Main points:
1. Text, context and discourse.
2. Levels of contextual abstraction.
3. Types of contexts.
4. Contextual relationships.
LECTURE 16
Standards of Textuality.
Main points:
1. Cohesion and coherence.
2. Intentionality and acceptibility.
3. Informativity, relevance and intertextuality.
LECTURE 17
Memory. Text Processing (Knowledge).
Main points:
1. Formal typologies.
2. Functional typologies.
3. Text processing (knowledge): syntactic, semantic, pragmatic.
LECTURE 18
Text Processing (Skills).
Main points:
Interconnections between text production and text reception.
2. Problem-solving and text-processing.
3. Synthesis: writing. Strategies and tactics.
4. Analysis: reading.
7
LECTURE 1
Model. Perspectives on Translation.
Basic Approaches to Translation and Interpretation.
Main points:
1. Basic approaches to translation and interpretation.
2. Translation as intercultural communication and as a human activity.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1. Basic approaches to translation and interpretation.
There exist many rather controversial definitions of translation and interpretation
suggested by the representatives of different schools of linguistics and translation. These
definitions range from formal, structural approaches to translation, e. g. “translation is
substitution of elements or structures of one language by the elements or structures of
another language” (A. Oettinger, N. Chomsky, O. Kade, V. Rozentsveig), to semantic and
functional treatment of translation, e. g. “translation is rendering in the target language
(TL) of the closest equivalent of the initial message from the point of view of its meaning
and style” (E. Nida, C. Taber, see also a survey of different approaches to translation in
Швейцер 1988: 42-75).
All these approaches contributed to a contemporary understanding of translation as
interlingual and intercultural communication recognized by many Ukrainian (I. Korynets,
S. Maksymov, G. Miram, A. Panasyev,O. Semenets), Russian (Barkhudarov, G. Chernov,
A. Komissarov, R. Minyar-Beloruchev, A. Shveitser) and western (M. A. K. Halliday, M.
Hoey) writers on the subject.
According to this understanding translation is a process of transforming speech
messages in the source language (SL) into the speech messages in the target language
(TL) under condition that their sense and communicative intention remain unchanged
(see Чернов 1987: 6). It is quite natural that in the process of translation the form of the
message can be transformed due to the structural (lexical, morphological and syntactical)
differences between languages. Such transformations which are inevitable in the
translation are also called “code shifting” (i. e. substitution of the SL structures by the TL
structures).
2. Translation as intercultural communication.
The process of translation is often described for practical reasons as a three-stage
pattern (see Швейцер 1988: 49; Miram 1998: 57):
STAGE 1 STAGE 3
S1 R1 S2 R2
CODE SHIFTING
(transformations)
STAGE 2
Where Stage 1 is communication between the original Sender of information (source
language sender or S ) and translator (receiver of information or R ), Stage 2 is “code
1 1 1
8
shifting” (transformations, performed by a translator ) and Stage 3 - communication
between the translator (S ) and the final addressee (target language receiver or R ).
2 2 2
According to this scheme there are two interrelated communicative acts in the process
of translation: communication between the initial sender of information and a translator
and communication between a translator and the final addressee (receiver of information).
In this process a translator is changing his (her) role all the time, acting as a receiver (at
Stage 1) and as a sender (Stage 3) of the respective messages. Focusing upon the code
shifting process, this scheme, however, does not consider social, cultural, political and
other extralinguistic factors of communication.
A. Shveitser (1988: 51), following Nida and Taber (1969), suggests another scheme of
translation which includes both linguistic and extralinguistic factors. This scheme seems to
be much more comprehensive and will be used as the basic model in our approach to
analysis of the process relevant for translation and interpretation:
C
1
L
1
TEXT 2
R
TEXT 3
1
S
1
communicative R2 S2
situation 1 L2
C2
communicative
situation 2
where:
S - sender (source language speaker);
1 1
R - receiver (source language addressee);
1 1
R - receiver (translator/interpreter in the mode of receiving in-coming messages);
2 2
S - sender (translator/interpreter in the mode of performing translation);
2 2
R - receiver (target language addressee);
3 3
L - language (source language);
1 1
L - language (target language);
2 2
C - culture (source culture);
1 1
C - culture (target culture).
2 2
According to this scheme translation may be defined as a two-stage process of inter-
lingual and inter-cultural communication, during which a translator, on the basis of an
analyzed and transformed text in L1, creates another text in L2 which substitutes the
source text in the target language and culture. It should be also added to this definition
that translation is a process aimed at rendering communicative effect of the source text
9
modified by the difference between two languages, two cultures and two communicative
situations.
So an act of translation appears to be an intercultural communicative event, so far as
cultures include the corresponding languages, languages include texts and texts pertain to
specific subject fields (предметні галузі): politics, economics, business, law, teaching,
chemistry, mathematics, physics, agriculture, environmental protection, medicine, etc.
10
LECTURE 2
Translation as a Human Activity and a Mysterious Phenomenon
Main points:
1. Translation as a human activity and a mysterious phenomenon.
2. Ambiguity problem in translation.
3. Disambiguation tools.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1. Translation as a human activity and a mysterious phenomenon.
We are concerned with translation and in particular, with proposing a new orientation
to the study of translation. We intend to set the scene for what is to follow by asking three
questions which lie at the root of any attempt to understand the phenomenon of translation.
1. What is translation?
2. What is a translator?
3. What is translator theory?
We shall soon discover that these questions are fraught with ambiguity and the
answers to them are far from satisfactory. These is no one theory that is entirely adequate
for building a comprehensive formal model of translation. It is necessary to find basic
methods and tools of formalization (formulating general rules on the basis of particular
translation cases) in modern linguistics.
Translation is a human activity known since very long ago and the professions of an
interpreter or a translator are among the oldest dating back to biblical times and earlier. In
the armies of Alexander the Great and King Darius of Persia interpreters were
distinguished by badges with the logo of a parrot.
Until the late nineteen fifties translation had never been in focus of scholars’ attention.
There are major reasons:
1. The word “translation” is itself ambiguous.
2. Abundance of an easily available and relatively cheap workforce to do the job at an
acceptable quality level.
3. Relatively low quality of translation was generally satisfactory for the existing marked.
4. Until the introduction of computers and market globalization the flows of multilingual
information in the world had been rather fragmented.
5. Translation is one of the complex problems that human intellect may face.
Komissarov’s Theory of Translation Equivalence Level (TEL) states that while
translating you pass from one of the following equivalence level so another:
a) sign level (words and word combinations);
b) utterance level (sentence);
c) message level (phrase, paragraph);
d) situation description level (text fragments);
e) communication purpose level (whole text).
