Claus Mathiesen Head of Language Training Section Institute for Languages and Culture Royal Danish...

Claus Mathiesen

Head of Language Training Section

Institute for Languages and Culture

Royal Danish Defence College

TEACHING TRANSLATION AT ILR

LEVEL 3

SOME THOUGHTS AND IDEAS

Student to me:

”Translation? But, Claus, isn’t that just to…?”

THE INTUITIVE APPROACH…..

“A successful translation is one that conveys the explicit and implicit meaning of the source language into the target language as fully and accurately as possible.

From the standpoint of the user, the translation must also meet the prescribed specifications and deadlines.”

ILR SKILL LEVEL DESCRIPTIONS FOR TRANSLATION PERFORMANCE

(PREFACE)

“Competence in two languages is necessary but not sufficient for any translation task.  Though the translator must be able to (1) read and comprehend the source language and

(2) write comprehensibly in the target language, the translator must also be able to

(3) choose the equivalent expression in the target language that both fully conveys and best matches the meaning intended in the source language (referred to as congruity judgment).

ILR SKILL LEVEL DESCRIPTIONS FOR TRANSLATION PERFORMANCE

(PREFACE)

“A weakness in any of these three abilities will influence performance adversely and have a negative impact on the utility of the product.  Therefore, all three abilities must be considered when assessing translation skills.”

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(One) conclusion: When translating between two languages, you can only reach the level of your reading/writing skills in the two languages.

From a foreign language into your own: 3(?)

ILR SKILL LEVEL DESCRIPTIONS FOR TRANSLATION PERFORMANCE

(PREFACE)

Can translate texts that contain not only facts but also abstract language, showing an emerging ability to capture their intended implications and many nuances.

Such texts usually contain situations and events which are subject to value judgments of a personal or institutional kind, as in some newspaper editorials, propaganda tracts, and evaluations of projects.

Linguistic knowledge of both the terminology and the means of expression specific to a subject field is strong enough to allow the translator to operate successfully within that field.

Word choice and expression generally adhere to target language norms and rarely obscure meaning.

The resulting product is a draft translation, subject to quality control.

LEVEL 3 (PROFESSIONAL PERFORMANCE)

1. MEANING2. INFORMATION3. FUNCTIONAL STYLES

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4. TRANSLATION NORM(S)

SOME USEFUL TOOLS TO INCLUDE IN DISCUSSIONS WITH STUDENTS

Lexical referentialpragmatic intralinguistic

Grammaticalmorphological/grammatical categories

syntactical

Contextualclosewider

Extralinguistic time/place

1) SEMANTICS – MEANING - DISSECTION

REFERENTIAL

1) completely coinciding 2) partly coinciding 3) no coinciding

PRAGMATIC- style (neutral, spoken, written, poetic, term)

- register (colloquial, informal, neutral, formal, ceremonial)

- emotional colouring (negative, neutral, positive)

---------- word order

---------- metaphors

- connotations(?)

INTRALINGUISTIC- rhyme, rhythmic, allitterations etc.

- word play, nicknames etc.

EXTRALINGUISTIC SITUATION(time, place, surroundings, subject matter, participants etc.)

- such as: number, gender, case,aspects, time

- syntactical meanings (active, passive)

- OPTIONAL or- OBLIGATORY?

CONTEXT – close - wider

cognitivemotional-expressivedynamicaesthetic

2) TYPES OF INFORMATION

COGNITIV INFORMATION”descriptive”compressed APPELATIVE

INFORMATION”prescriptive”

EMOTIONAL INFORMATION

”subjective”metaphorical

AESTHETICINFORMATION

TEXT TYPES can be differentiated by

the dominating type or the mix of types of information they

contain

3) TYPOLOGY OF STYLESFIVE (SIX) ”FUNCTIONAL STYLES”

Scientific/technical

Official/business

Publicistic/newspaper

Written

Spoken

Literary

Colloquial

NON-FICTION FICTION

(monologic,

prepared)

(dialogic, unprepared)

(conventionalized)

(”no conventions”, ”individual style”)

equivalence – adequacytarget language correctnessstyle and genre(super)pragmatics

4) TRANSLATION NORMS

HIERARCHY OF NORM(S)

PRAGMATICS

STYLE – and GENRE

TARGET LANGUAGE

EQUIVALENCE/ADEQUACY

the dissection of meaningthe idea of the dominance of one kind of

information being typical to different kinds of texts

the understanding of the hierarchy of norms in translation

provide good tools for the students, when deciding which of, normally, (too) many choices will be the best in a given situation

GUIDELINES FOR ”DECISIONMAKING”

defining the recipient(s)picking relevant texts representing increasing complexity

providing general guidelines to the students

setting time limits/”deadlines”

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES-1

individual/group/collective?”persons, who are interested in the country and what is going on there, but who do not possess any specialised knowledge of the country’s background or reality”

• of utmost importance when deciding to which extent it will be necessary to make implicit meaning explicit• ”State Duma” – ”Ptasie Mleczko”

DEFINING THE RECIPIENT(S)

shares features with the scientific style: coherent and logical syntactical structure, careful paragraphing, expanded system of connectives

shares features with the style of belles-lettres: words with emotive meaning, imagery

Publicistic vs. newspaper stylethe goal of the publicistic style: ‘views’, i.e. to shape the audience, to influence public opinion, to make the audience accept the speaker’s point of viewthe goal of the newspaper style: ‘news’, i.e. to inform the audience

PICKING THE RIGHT TEXTS-1PUBLICISTIC/NEWSPAPER STYLE

Syntactical Featurescoherent and logical syntactical structurecareful paragraphing simple rather than complex sentencesexpanded system of connectivesbrevity of expressionabundant use of modifiers (adjectives, adverbs)

Lexical Featuresemphasis on accessibility and easy understanding > paraphrasing rather than special termsonly established and generally understood terms (e.g. Cold War)evaluating adjectives (e.g. the strongest pressure, growing menace, elementary blunder)traditional, unoriginal metaphors and similesnewspaper clichésnumerals, abbreviations, symbols

PICKING THE RIGHT TEXTS-2PUBLICISTIC/NEWSPAPER STYLE

short news items (preferably complete texts)start with reports on events that could happen

almost anywherecar accidents, fires, official visits

continue with texts with a more ”local” flavouranniversaries, social matters, etc.

move on to texts with a highly ”local” flavour including references, comments, elements of criticism, irony, humor, even poetry, etc.

15-20 texts for translation totally

PICKING THE RIGHT TEXTS-3PUBLICISTIC/NEWSPAPER STYLE

The purpose of reading the text before starting to translate general idea, intention of the author, ”tone” etc. ”pre-translation analysis”

The first part of the translation is the most time-consuming Main difficulties/challenges

Standardized expressions situational, unseparable, clichees

Metaphors Terminology References to source-language reality

geography, institutions, history, culture ethnography (dress, food, tools etc.) intertextuality (in the broadest sense) note: references can be ”historical” or contemporary

Poetic language

STUDENT GUIDELINES-1

What to avoid?”argot” or ”semi-translations””translator’s remarks”formulations influenced by the source languagepunctuation influenced by the source language(!)

STUDENT GUIDELINES-2

on translitterationon titles, names

on using dictionarieson using the interneton using web-based

resources

STUDENT GUIDELINES-3

make your own ”reference translation”, before correcting the output of the students

correct the students’ translations, providing good and exact guidance

discuss (a few) general challenges in the translation with the class

develop critical/self-critical awareness in smaller groups/pairs

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES-2

taking full responsibility for the translationthoroughnes (first language competence etc.)handling time pressurelanguage awareness in generaltranslation awareness”the discussions during the process are more

important than the result”the possibilities of the internet have raised the bar

regarding the quality of translation significantly!if you search, you will find (almost anything)!!

”hunting instinct”

APPROACHES TO BE DEVELOPED IN THE WORKING PROCESS

Is it possible to translate everything?

Yes, but not always without loss of meaning,which might even be significant.

TRANSLATABILITY

as ”word-to-word” as possible (”imitating”)as ”sense-to-sense” as necessary

(”recreating”)but first of all NATURALLY!

”WORD-TO-WORD” OR ”SENSE-TO-SENSE”?(THE OLDEST OF ALL DISCUSSIONS ABOUT TRANSLATION)

”Claus, now I really understand, WHY

translation is NOT just to…”

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED…

(Yeah, and you be glad, it’s only a DRAFT, too, you little i….!)

the described way of working with translation has proved to be a good ”stepping stone” for training:translation to a foreign languagetranslation of military textsalthough they mainly belong to the scientific-technical functional style

interpretation in general

FURTHER STEPS