Lingua inglese III - Appunti

Introduction

This book covers major areas of the now established discipline of translation studies, with particular reference to systematic translation theories and models of contemporary importance. It aims to bring together and clearly summarize the major strands of translation studies that have previously been dispersed, in order to help readers acquire an understanding of the discipline and the necessary background and tools to begin to carry out their own research on translation. The translation studies is the new academic discipline related to the study of the theory and phenomena of translation. By its nature it is multilingual and also interdisciplinary, encompassing languages, linguistics, communication studies, philosophy and a range of types of cultural studies. In this book aims to be a practical introduction to the field. We can read the different contemporary models that are applied to illustrative texts in brief case studies so that the reader can see them in operation.new research contained in these case studies, together with thediscussion and research points sections, is designed to encourage further exploration andunderstanding of translation issue. The aim is to enable the readers to develop their understandingof the issues and associated metalanguage, and to begin to apply the models themselves. Thebook can provide a stimulating introduction to a range of theoretical approaches to translationthat are relevant both for those engaged in the academic study of translation and for theprofessional linguist. The book has been structured so that it can function as a coursebook intranslation, translation studies and translation theory.Clarity has been a mayor consideration, so each chapter follows a similar format of:

• An introductory table clearly presenting key terms and idea;
• The main text, describing in detail the models and issues under discussion;
• An illustrative case study; which applies and evaluates the main model of the

Chapter 2

Much of translation theory from Cicero to the twentieth century centred on the recurring and sterile debate as to whether translations should be literal (word-for-word)

• Suggestions for further reading
• A brief evaluative summary of the chapter
• A series of discussion and research points to stimulate further thought and research

This volume has had to be selective. The theorists and models covered have been chosen because of their strong influence on translation studies and because of they are particularly representative of the approaches in each chapter.

The emphasis is on encouraging reflection, investigation and awareness of the new discipline, and on applying the theory to both practice and research.

A major issue has been the choice of languages for the texts used in the illustrative case studies. There are examples or texts from English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Some additional examples are given from Dutch, Punjabi and Russian.

or free (sense-for-sense), a diadthat is famously discussed by in his translation of the Bible into Latin. Controversy over theSt Jerometranslation of the Bible and other religious texts was central to translation theory for over a thousandyears. Early theorists tended to be translators who presented a justification for their approach in apreface to the translation, often paying little attention to (or no having access to) what otherbefore them had said. proposed triad of the late seventeenth century marked theDryden’ sbeginning of more systematic and precise definition of translation, while respectSchleiermacher’sfor the foreign text was to have considerable influence over scholars in modern times.Describes some of the major issues that are discussed in writings about translation up to the middleod the twentieth century. This huge range of over two thousand years , beginning with Cicero in thefirst century BCE, focuses on the literal vs. free translation debate, an

imprecise and circular debate from which theorists have emerged only in the last fifty years. The chapter describes some of the classic writings on translation over the years, making a selection of the most well-known and readily available sources. It aims to initiate discussion on some of the key issues.

CHAPTER 3

This chapter has examined important questions of translation raised by linguistic in the 1950s and 1960s. The key terms are meaning and equivalence, discussed by Roman Jakobson in 1959 and crucially and propose that translation should aim for equivalent effect. Despite subsequent questioning of the feasibility of that goal, Nida's great achievement is to have drawn translation theory away from the stagnant literal vs. free debate and into the modern era. His concept of formal and dynamic equivalence place the receiver in the centre of the equation and have exerted huge influence over subsequent theoreticians, especially in Germany.

Deals with the concepts of meaning, equivalence

and equivalent effect. Translation theory in the 1960s under Eugene Nida shifted the emphasis to the receiver of the message. This chapter encompasses Nida's generative-influenced model of translation transfer and his concepts for formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence.

CHAPTER 4

The 1950s and 1960s saw the emergence of attempts at detailed taxonomies of small linguistic changes (shift) in ST-TT pairs. Vinay and Darbelnet's classical taxonomy continues to exert influence today and was useful in bringing to light a wide range of different translation techniques. However, like Catford, who in the 1960s applied a systematic contrastive linguistic approach to translation, there is a static linguistic model. Fuzziness of category boundaries and the automatic counting of shifts are problems that have continued to affect later attempts, such as van Leuven-Zwart's, whose model tries to systematize the evaluation of an ST-TT pair and relate shifts to higher-level discourse levels.

Another approach to the analysis of shifts came from Czechoslovakia in the 1960s and 1970s, where Levy’, Popovic and Miko paid greater attention to the translation of style. Details attempts that have been made to provide a taxonomy of the linguistic changes or shifts which occur in translation. The main model described here is Vinay and Darbelnet’s classic taxonomy, but reference is also made to Catford’ s linguistic model and van Leuven-Zwart’ s translation shift approach from the 1980s.

NOTE: In chapter 4, we discuss taxonomic linguistic approaches that have attempted to produce a comprehensive model of translation shift analysis. Chapter 7 considers modern descriptive translation studies; its leading proponent, Gideon Toury, has moved away from a prescriptive definition of equivalence and, accepting as given that a TT is equivalent to its ST, instead seeks to identify the web of relations between two. Yet, there is still a great deal of practically oriented writing on

Translation that continues a prospective discussion of equivalence. Translator training courses also, perhaps inevitably, have this focus: errors by trainee translators are often corrected prescriptively according to a notion of equivalence held by the trainer. For this reason, equivalence is an issue that will remain central to the practice of translation, even if translation studies and translation theory has, for the time being at least, marginalized it.

CHAPTER 5

Functionalist and communicative translation theories advanced in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s moved translation from a static linguistic phenomenon to being considered as an act of intercultural communication. Reiss's initial work links language function, text type, genre and translation strategy. Reiss's approach was later coupled to Vermeer's highly influential skopos theory, where the translation strategy is decided by the function of the TT in the target culture. The skopos theory is part of the model of

translational action also proposed by Holz- Mänttäri, who places professional commercial translation within a sociocultural context, using the jargon of business and management. Translation is viewed as a communicative transaction involving initiator, commissioner, and the producers, users and receivers of the ST and TT. In this model, the ST is "dethroned" and the translation is judged not by equivalence of meaning but the commission. Nord's model, designed for training translators, retains the functional context but includes a more detailed text-analysis model for the ST. Covers Reiss and Vermeer's text-type and skopos theory of the 1970s and 1980s and Nord's text-linguistic approach. In this chapter, translation is analyzed according to text type and function in the TL culture, and prevailing concepts of text analysis - such as word order, information structure and thematic progression - are employed.

CHAPTER 6

The discourse and register analysis

The approaches described in this chapter are based on the model of Hallidayan systemic functional linguistics which links microlevel linguistic choices to the communicative function of a text and the sociocultural meaning behind it. House's (1977, 1997) model of register analysis is designed to compare an ST-TT pair for situational variables, genre, function and language, and to identify both the translation method employed (covert or overt) and translation errors. It has been criticized for its confusing and scientific jargon; however, it provides a systematic means of uncovering some important considerations for the translator. Work by both Baker (1992) and Hatim and Mason (1990, 1997) bring together a range of ideas from pragmatics and sociolinguistics that are relevant for translation and translation analysis. Baker's analysis is particularly useful in focusing on the thematic and cohesion structures of a text. Hatim and Mason, also working within the Hallidayan model, move beyond.

House's register analysis and begin to consider the way social and power relations are negotiated and communicated in translation. This ideological level is further developed in the culturally oriented theories. Moves on to consider House's register analysis model and the development of discourse-oriented approaches in the 1990s by Baker and Hatim and Mason, who make use of Hllidayan linguistic to examine translation as communication within a sociocultural context. CHAPTER 7 Even-Zohar's polysystem theory moves the study of translations out of a static linguistic analysis of shifts and obsession with one-to-one equivalence and into an investigation of the position of translated literature as a whole in the historical and literary systems of the target culture. Toury then focuses attention on finding a methodology for descriptive translation studies. His TT-oriented theoretical framework combines linguistic comparison of ST and TT and consideration of the cultural framework of.the TT. His aim is to identify the patterns of behaviour in the translation and thereby to reconstruct.