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Epistemological problems in translation and its teaching
Abstract
Epistemological Problems outlines a critical approach that moves between deconstruction and pragmatics. It does not prescribe any norms; it does not set out to teach anyone how to translate. Instead, it poses and encourages the basic questions 'Why?' and 'How do you know?', which should be asked whenever anyone tells us anything about translation and the way it should be taught.
The book is based on a seminar that took place with the participation of students and teachers at the translation school in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. The written version explains epistemological problems as simply as possible, following the oral style of the original discussions and referring to numerous local examples.
The chapter titles are as follows:
1. The primacy of doubt
2. Translation and deconstruction
3. Making sense of indeterminism
4. The uncertain authority of informants
5. The practice of semiosis
6. Principles for the teaching of translation
7. The positive uses of authority
8. The negotiation of mistakes and errors.
... Despite they are familiar with certain subjects in all fields, they are usually not experts in all of them. Pym [4] pointed out that errors could make because of lack of knowledge of the specific field concerned. Translators usually get specialised in certain field, and gain the knowledge needed. ...
... For example, when translating a simple catchphrase, the sentences have to be adapted in another language where the rhymes will not necessarily be the same if translated literally. This is therefore a major difficulty for the translator and only creative translators are able to complete such tasks [4]. ...
... It was revealed by Zainudin and Awal ([14] that students enjoy discussing their work with classmates after translation. Pym [4] stated that translation class should spent most of its time creating and discussing errors. In addition, Pym mentioned that correction should be oral as the whole class could get benefits of that. ...
Translation is transmit a text from one language to another language without lose the meaning of the original. During translation process, there are many problem that could happen; especially if the person who dii translation is not professional. The problems that could happen are: problems regard to culture, as translator when has no idea about the culture of the original text, he would commit mistakes while translating. Another problem is idiomatic expression; some expressions are found in one language but there are no relevant expressions in the language that are translated to. As result, a translator may choose to illustrate that expression in some other ways. Moreover, verbs with two words could cause many problems. English is full of verbs that are followed with prepositions and which give different meanings from the same verb used separately. Thus the translator with no background knowledge about this, could do horrible mistakes in translating. Furthermore, translating texts literally affect the quality of the translation, as not all the words have to be translated. These problems could be solved when followed the following instructions. Specialize in one field and get technical knowledge in it, as it is hard to be professional in all the fields. Try to paraphrase using related and unrelated words. When it comes to words that have no correspondent in the target language, you can illustrate it by using loan words or loan words plus explanation. Try to be bilingual and use monolingual dictionary. Also, using grammar checker could be useful in translation process. During translation process, problems always occur but solutions are always there.
... I remember stumbling across this back in the pre-Internet days when information was hard to come by and so was money -I had to translate fast. I was translating a letter addressed to the 'Asociación Internacional de Colombofilia' (recounted in Pym 1993), which could be rendered as the 'International Pigeon Association,' 'International Pigeon-Fanciers Association,' 'International Colombophile Association,' or several more. How was I to know? ...
Once fidelity and equivalence are abandoned, how can successful translation be understood? Risk management offers an alternative way of looking at the work of translators and their social function. It posits that the greater the cultural differences, the greater the risks of failed communication. What can be done to manage those risks? Drawing on the ways translators and interpreters handle intercultural encounters by adjusting what is said, this essay outlines a series of strategies that can be applied to all kinds of cross-cultural communication. Practical examples are drawn from a wide range of contexts, from Australian bushfires to court interpreting in Barcelona, with special regard for the new kinds of risks presented by machine translation and generative AI. The result is a critical view of the professionalization of translation, and a fresh account of democratized translation as a rich human activity in the service of cross-cultural cooperation.
The entry discusses the place of intervarietal translation in the semiotic classification of translation types provided by Roman Jakobson. This kind of translation is a liminal one, combining characteristics of intralingual, interlingual, and intersemiotic types of translation. Challenges related to formal intelligibility, semantic comprehensibility, and pragmatic intelligibility as defined by Smith are associated with intermediary translation via world Englishes and they are dwelt on in the entry. Further on, the discussion continues into the forms of world Englishes translation, which might be “outward” and “internal,” that is, with a translator having a source text and producing a target text, and without a mediator, with a bilingual producing directly a target text and having no source text. Both forms of translation require knowledge of the specificity of world Englishes participating in intercultural communication.
Today we can encounter an abundance of theoretical approaches to translation, learning, and teaching, and new approaches continuously appear. But if we look at Translation Studies or translator training, that is to say, at those fields of practice where this abundant variety ought to manifest itself and flourish, we contradictorily find a more restricted collection of approaches. The present article focuses on this observation, and discusses the phenomenon of diminishing diversity, drawing first, on the authors’ own observations as translation researchers and translator trainers; second, on certain tendencies within translation studies; and third, on some documented training practices. The aim is to shed critical light on factors that possibly give rise to the mentioned contradiction. These factors include, on the one hand, the researchers’ and teachers’ endeavor to be in the vanguard, and on the other, their apparent lack of time and energy, even personal hindrances or preferences, and finally, the streamlining force of the expectations of their community.
The study probes into the epistemological confluence of semiotics and translation
studies through the adoption of common conceptual tools. It begins with a reflection on the scientific character of the two research areas, semiotics, and translation, through the positions of both semioticians and translation scholars. In this context, it presents the positions of semioticians on translation and the positions of translation scholars on the usefulness of semiotics in the study of translation phenomena, as well as the research field of translation semiotics. The study argues that translation studies seek semiotic conceptual tools, different methods of analysis, and an appropriate theoretical framework since both disciplines study
translation as a cultural phenomenon. The study records three major findings: first, the influence of semiotic theory is most evident in disciplines of translation studies where verbal and nonverbal semiotic systems cooperate and interact together, especially in audiovisual translation. Second, that the breadth of the field of semiotics seems to be viewed with caution by translation scholars, and third, that the subfield of translation semiotics seems to reflect more the views of semioticians into translation and less of translation scholars into semiotics.
The paper presents first the relationship between semiotics and translation studies, the debate on their epistemological status, the positions of semioticians on translation and translation studies on semiotics. Then, it is presented the subfield of translation semiotics and a reflection is developed on what translation studies seeks from semiotics at the conceptual, methodological and theoretical levels . The study concludes with the influence of semiotics on Greek translation studies and with the author's reflection on the interaction between the two research fields.
This book analyses critical aspects of the complex and intricate process of transposing irony and humour from the cultural context of the source language into that of the target language. In other words, it goes beyond the scope of linguistic translation, and it may instead be qualified as an instance of cultural translation that attempts to identify bridges between different worldviews. Hence, translation is seen here as a creative and dynamic process by which linguistic, cultural and social meanings in the source culture are transposed into equivalent meanings in the target culture. Cultural environments not often represented in the mainstream literature, such as Finland, Galicia, Macedonia and Romania, are present in this volume.
By exploring such culture-sensitive mechanisms of creating and translating irony and humour, rendered by equally sensitive linguistic strategies and solutions, the book is transdisciplinary; given its eclectic character and the theoretical and practical issues it tackles, the book will interest a wide range of people: translation scholars, linguists, language teachers, translators, interpreters, and translation graduates and postgraduates.
The relationship between the market demand for translations and the training of translators is discussed with a focus on the translation market in Spain. The author examines the impact of technology, particularly computer technology and communication tools, on the translation profession. The text highlights the decentralization of the translation market and the expansion of translator services into other areas, such as electronic text production and terminology work. The increasing specialization of texts and the intercultural stratification of discourses are also explored. The author argues that while technology and specialization influence the demand for translations, they do not necessarily dictate the training of translators, and there are various factors to consider in the training process. The author's arguments are based on their personal experience as a professional translator in Spain and their involvement in translator training. The text emphasizes the need for flexibility and adaptability in the translation profession, and it discusses the changing nature of translator work conditions and career paths.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.