Introduction to Translation Studies Translation Practice and Contrastive Grammar

Main texts
M. Ulrych, Translating Texts. From Theory to Practice, pp. 21-114

C. Taylor, Language to Language, pp. 48-64

Source Text Source Language Text ST

Target Text Target Language Text TT

Translation is the rendering of a Source Language text into a Target Language text. But translation is not a merely automatic substitution of linguistic structures. Translation is an incredibly broad notion, which can be understood in many different ways Mark Shuttleworth, Dictionary of Translation Studies (1997)

Some definitions
Traducere: trans (al di l) + ducere (portare)

Translation is the transfer of a meaning, a semantic core from one linguistic code to another

Prego Ciao Pronto? You know the truth He delivered the punch Ha il senso della realt A gentle slope Of gentle birth Antonio arrivato arrivato Antonio! successa una disgrazia.

 Pronto? Pronto. Parla Mary, potrei parlare con Susan Pronto? Si, cara Allora andiamo

Hello? Hello, this is Mary, could I speak to Susan please? Are you ready? Yes, I am Right, then lets go

 Potrebbe passarmi quel libro per favore? Prego? Vorrei leggere quel libro Prego Grazie Prego

Could you give me that book please? Sorry? I would like to read that book Here you are Thank you Youre welcome

 Prego? Can I help you? Vorrei comprare un Id like to buy a libro book

Prego, dopo di lei

After you

Non hanno un bel niente Niente affatto La goccia che fa traboccare il vaso Mi piace il tiramis Il rosso delluovo A buon mercato Buon Natale e buon anno He went (and, andava, andato) Egli andava (he went, he would go, he used to go, he was going)

Language

Use
Context and culture
(situation) (register)

Structure

Communicative Functions

Phonology Graphology Lexicon Grammar Style Linguistic Variations

Ewe Turn: sheep stop the traffic in Madrid

Ewe Turn U Turn

Pecore in fuga bloccano il traffico di Madrid Could breaking news be starting to break us instead?
To break: distruggere, fare a pezzi

E se le ultime notizie fossero davvero le ultime?

Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea. La ballata del vecchio marinaio (trad. T. Tommaso Pisanti) Soffiava il buon vento, volava la bianca spuma seguiva libera la scia; I primi fummo che irrompemmo In quel tacito mare.

It is dangerous to lean out

Valone, 20 aprile 1917

Vietato sporgersi

Unaltra notte, In questoscuro Colle mani Gelate Distinguo Il mio viso Mi vedo Abbandonato nellinfinito Ungaretti

In this dark With frozen hands I make out My face I see myself Adrift in infinite space Traduzione di Peter Creagh

In this dark With hands Frozen I make out My face I see myself abandoned in the infinite Traduzione di Charles Tomlison

There was another problem to be solved: how to protect bank deposits from the risk of disappearing into thin air as a result of the overwhelming losses which were threatening to bring down the three main banks. Cera anche un altro problema da risolvere: come proteggere i depositi bancari dal rischio di dissolversi nellaria in seguito alle perdite schiaccianti che minacciavano le tre banche principali. Restava inoltre scoperto il problema della salvaguardia dei depositi bancari esposti al rischio di volatilizzarsi a fronte della gran massa di perdite che ormai schiacciava i tre principali Istituti di credito.

Translation Studies

In his article On Linguistic Aspects of Translation (1959) Roman Jakobson distinguishes three kinds of translation

Intralingual translation: rewording (riformulazione) (an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs in the same language) Interlingual translation: translation proper (an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language) Intersemiotic translation: transmutation (an interpretation of verbal signs by means of non verbal signs) (parola-immagine)

Translation Studies refer to what Jakobson defines INTERLINGUAL Translation Translation Studies date back to the 1970s. 1972 James S. Holmes, The Name and Nature of Translation Studies during the Third Conference of Applied Linguistics (in Copenhagen) used the expression Translation Studies to define a new area of analysis that is not simply a part of linguistics. 1978 Andr Lefevere proposed that the name Translation Studies should be adopted for the discipline that concerns itself with the problems raised by the production and description of translations

Language

Use
Context and culture
(situation) (register)

Structure

Communicative Functions

Phonology Graphology Lexicon Grammar Style Linguistic Variations

Translation:

From Theory to Practice

The translatability of a text depends on many aspects.

1. It depends on the degree to which the source text is embedded in its own culture. The more culture-bound a text is, the more difficult it is to translate. The less culture bound a text is, the less it needs to be adapted to suit the TL readership. We should speak of a sliding scale of translatability, largely depending on the degree to which a text is embedded in SL culture.

2. The translatability of a text is deeply connected with the communicative function of the text. Promotional leaflets, business letters and poetry are meaningful examples of different degrees of translatability.

Translation Strategies (Malone) In 1988 Malone introduces a list of nine translation strategies, that is nine different procedures adopted by translations in order to cope with the lexical and syntactical differences between Source Language and Target Language Approfondimento: C. Taylor, Language to Language, pp. 48-64.

1. Equation

Spaghetti, Lasagna, Pizza (however the absolute equivalence of these terms must be questioned, as they are used outside their home context) One of the most well-known traps associated with the wordfor word equation if that of false friends, where the meanings of deceptively similar terms do not match across languages (Actual/attuale; editor/editore) Some lexical items have a particularly high frequency in Italian (much higher than their English equivalents)

(ex. Realt) reality: the English lexical item has too high a level of abstraction Larte come imitazione della realt/Art as imitation of nature La realt dura/Life is hard La sua malattia una realt/Her illness is genuine Progetti che diventano realt/plans which are realised Spesso la realt ci sfugge/Often we dont see things as they really are Ha il senso della realt /He is realistic Bisogna tenere il senso della realt locale/We must keep local needs in mind La realt economica/the economic situation

Examples that deviate from equation The Holy Bible (La Sacra Bibbia) (not The Sacred Bible) (not La Santa Bibbia)

2. Substitution (the antithesis of equation: the translation has little or no morpho-syntactic or semantic relation to the source text. Ex. The Italian subjunctive replaced by an English infinitive Far in modo che si convinca a venire Ill try to get her to come

The straw that broke the camels back La goccia che fa traboccare il vaso

3. Divergence: The strategy of choosing one possible solution from a potential range of alternatives

panna Cream Crema glass

vetro

bicchiere If it should happen should it happen

Se dovesse succedere

If it were to happen Were it to happen

 She saw a beautiful dress in the window She opened the window She lowered the window
NIENTE

Non ho niente da dire Niente male Niente scherzi Non hanno un bel niente

I have nothing to say Not bad No messing about! They have nothing at all

4. Convergence

Commercialista Accountant Ragioniere Contabile Tu Lei Voi You

5. Amplification

Swansea is the birthplace of Dylan Thomas

Swasea il luogo natale del famoso scrittore e poeta Dylan Thomas

6. Reduction Carta geografica

Map

7. Diffusion A source text item or utterance is expanded without adding any extra layer of meaning Cheap Weatherwise
A buon mercato

Per quanto riguarda il tempo

The nineteen century sex role system La divisione dei ruoli in base al sesso nel XIX secolo

8. Condensation A source text item or utterance is contracted without omitting any layer of meaning To look at To fall in love
guardare

innamorarsi

To run after

inseguire

9. Reordering It occurs when various procedures are introduced to the syntactic units into the most familiar patterns of the target language Black and white Non ancora giunto il tempo successa una disgrazia
Bianco e nero

The time has not yet come Something terrible has happened

HIGH PRESSURE
Pressione alta: high blood pressure Alta pressione: in the meteorological sense

Da questi elenchi apparir evidentissima la minima percentuale delle opere da noi tradotte in confronto al totale annuo delle opere importate. The very small percentage of works trnaslated by us compared to the total number of works imported per year is clear from these lists.

A cogliere la mela del biblico albero della conoscenza furono, il 25 aprile 1953, le mani di un bizzarro fisico inglese The hands which, on the 25 th of April 1953 picked the apple from the Biblical tree of knowledge belonged to a rather eccentic English physicist.

Language

Use
Context and culture
(situation) (register)

Structure

Communicative Functions

Phonology Graphology Lexicon Grammar Style Linguistic Variations

Language USE language functions

Ex. Nice weather, isnt it?: two people at the bus stop. The main purpose is to socialise, to create a common ground for conversation and not to make a statement about the weather. Standard phrases should be translated with standard equivalents in the TL, they should not be translated literally.

 La lingua un modo di agire sociale. Attraverso i nostri atti linguistici che si concatenano in un testo (scritto, verbale) e si attualizzano pragmaticamente, siamo in grado non solo di veicolare dei messaggi, ma di influenzare i comportamenti degli altri con richieste, domande, proposte, avvertimenti. Non sempre i meccanismi dellazione linguistica sono diretti ed espliciti.

 Ex. Chiuda quella finestra! in una sala dattesa ad uno sconosciuto: ordine efficace nel contenuto linguistico ma del tutto infelice dal punto di vista pragmatico, perch scortese. Le dispiacerebbe chiudere quella finestra? Potrebbe chiudere per cortesia: un atto linguistico strutturato a livello del discorso come una frase interrogativa, in realt non una domanda, una richiesta di informazione, ma di un servizio.

 People use language in order to achieve different aims. Apart from conveying meaning, all utterances have some communicative force. Under the surface structure of what is being said there is the underlying force. The overall meaning of an utterance largely depends on the addressers intentions, and on the underlying communicative force The translator must understand the overall communicative force of the utterances of the ST in order to convey it appropriately in the TT.

A: Linguistic Functions Austin, How to Do Things with Words (1962) Functions THE LOCUTION: the literal meaning of an utterance, the formal meaning of the words THE ILLOCUTION: the communicative force (the act that is performed by it: warning, request, etc.) THE PERLOCUTION: the effect on the hearer or reader

 Atto locutorio: Un atto linguistico si definisce locutorio in quanto chi lo produce compie unazione intenzionale fonica o grafica implicante luso di certe informazioni. Atto illocutorio: ogni enunciato che ha come scopo di modificare la situazione degli interlocutori. (ogni atto linguistico che consiste in unasserzione, una domanda, un ordine, una proposta) Ex. Io pometto, Perch? Ti ordino mi congratulo Atto perlocutorio: si esaminano le conseguenze dellatto linguistico sul destinatario (paura, desiderio, dolore, ansia)

B : communicative functions Elements of an act of verbal communication Jakobson (1960): communicative scheme Communicative functions Although texts are generally multifunctional, one function generally predominates

Addresser

Message Contact Context Code

Addressee

Expressive

Poetic Phatic Referential Metalingual

Conative

Relationship between communicative functions and text types (1)

Emotive function Literary texts autobiographies letters Technical reports referential function textbooks Scientific articles advertising conative function Political propaganda Charity appeals

Relationship between communicative functions and text types (2)

Poetry Poetic function songs Nursery rhymes Greetings phatic function condolences Good wishes metalingual function grammar dictionary

 C: Rhetoric functions Once the translator has determined what is the predominant language function of a ST, he has to establish what rhetorical strategies the author of the ST has used to achieve the desired effect Ex. In a vocative text, persuation may be achieved by narrating, describing, arguing Once the predominant language function has been established, the translators next task will be to determine what rhetorical function the author has used to achieve the desired effect.

Language

Use
Context and culture
(situation) (register)

Structure

Communicative Functions

Phonology Graphology Lexicon Grammar Style Linguistic Variations