Establishing and development of the theory of translation as a science in the 20 century
Establishing and development of the theory of translation as a science in the 20 century
Ministry
of Science and Education of Republic of Kazakhstan
Colledge
of the Foreign Languages
Establishing
and development of the theory of translation as a science in the XX century
Karaganda
2008
Introduction
Many years
ago, according to the Bible, all people living on the Earth spoke the same
language. As they had had a great desire to reach the God, they began building
a very high tower to be closer to him. The God decided to punish them and one
morning when they woke up they were speaking the different languages and could
not understand each other. Since that very time people have been needing
interpreters. Functionally, an interpreter is a person who converts a source
language to a target language. The interpreter’s function is conveying every
semantic element (tone and register) and every intention and feeling of the
message that the source-language speaker is directing to the target-language
listeners. Language interpreting or interpretation is the intellectual activity
of facilitating oral and sign-language communication, either simultaneously or
consecutively, between two or more users of different languages. Functionally,
interpreting and interpretation are the descriptive words for the activity. In
professional practice interpreting denotes the act of facilitating communication
from one language form into its equivalent, or approximate equivalent, in
another language form. Interpretation denotes the actual product of this work,
that is, the message as thus rendered into speech, sign language, writing,
non-manual signals, or other language form. This important distinction is
observed to avoid confusion. Peter Trent, a senator from Westmont, Canada was
sure that: “To think that you can be
an interpreter only because you know two languages is the same to think that
you can play the piano only because you have two hands”. Each interpreter must know
foreign languages very well and of course he must know theory of translation,
because it is impossible to translate perfectly without knowing the main basic
aspects of the theory of translations. The theme of this work has been chosen
because the theory of translation is of great importance in my future life. It
has a very interesting history, and was widely developed in the XX century.
This century is often called a century of great discoveries, development and
progress. Business relations among people, different kinds of communications
lead to intensive development of the theory of translation in the XX century.
This course paper’s aims
are to show the history of interpreting, establishing of the theory of
translation and its development in the last century. The course paper consists
of introduction, two chapters, conclusion and bibliography. In the first
chapter devoted to the history of interpreting and establishing of the theory
of translation the attention is paid to the definition of the terms
“translation” and “interpreting”. It is shown that the history of translation
has a very long way, beginning from the ancient times. A special attention is
paid to the history of theory. In the second chapter which is dedicated to the
development of the theory of translation in the twentieth century attention is
paid to Modern western Schools of translation and difference among them is
shown. In this chapter the difference between simultaneous and consecutive
translation is shown and types of interpreting are stated.
History of
interpreting and establishing of the theory of translation
Translation
and interpreting Translation is the interpreting of the meaning of a text and
the subsequent production of an equivalent text, likewise called a
“translation”, that communicates the same message in another language. The text
to be translated is called the “the source text”, and the language that it is
to be translated into is called the “target language”; the final product is
sometimes called the “target text”. Translation must take into account constraints that include context, the rules of grammar of the two
languages, their writing conventions, and their
idioms. A common misconception is that
there exists a simple word-for-word
correspondence between any two languages,
and that translation is a straightforward mechanical process;
such a word-for-word translation, however, cannot take into account context,
grammar, conventions, and idioms. Translation is fraught with the potential for
“spilling over” of idioms and usages from one language into the other, since
both languages coexist within the translator's mind. Such spilling over easily
produce linguistic hybrids such as “Franglais” (French-English), “Spanglish”
(Spanish-English), “Poglish” (Polish-English). On the other hand,
inter-linguistic spillages have also served the useful purpose of importing
calques and loanwords from a source language into a target language that had
previously lacked a concept or a convenient expression for the concept.
Translators and interpreters have thus played an important role in the
evolution of cultures. The art of translation is as old as written literature.
Parts of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, among the oldest known literary works,
have been found in translations into several Asiatic languages of the second
millennium BCE. The Epic of Gilgamesh may have been read, in their own
languages, by early authors of the Bible and of the Iliad. With the advent of
computers, attempts have been made to computerize or otherwise automate the
translation of natural language texts (machine translation) or to use computers
as an aid to translation (computer-assisted translation). The latin
“translatio” derives from the perfect passive participle, “translatum”, of
“transferre” The modern Romance, Germanic and Slavic European languages have
generally formed their own equivalent terms for this concept after the Latin
model – after “transferre” or after the kindred “traducere” (“to bring across”
or “to lead across”). Additionally, the Greek term for “translation”,
“metaphrasis” (“a speaking across”), has supplied English with “metaphrase” (a
“literal translation”, or “word-for-word” translation) – as contrasted with
“paraphrase” (“a saying in other words”, from the Greek “paraphrasis”).
“Metaphrase” corresponds, in one of the more recent terminologies, to “formal
equivalence”, and “paraphrase”, to “dynamic equivalence”. Newcomers to
translation sometimes proceed as if translation were an exact science – as if
consistent, one to one correlations existed between the words and phrases of
different languages, rendering translations fixed and identically reproducible,
much as in cryptography. Such novices may assume that all that is needed to
translate a text is to “encode” and “decode” equivalents between the two
languages, using a translation dictionary as the “codebook”. On the contrary,
such a fixed relationship would only exist were a new language synthesized and
simultaneously matched to a pre-existing language's scopes of meaning, etymologies, and
lexical ecological niches. If the new language were subsequently to take on a
life apart from such cryptographic use, each word would spontaneously begin to
assume new shades of meaning and cast off previous associations, thereby
vitiating any such artificial synchronization. Henceforth translation would
require the disciplines in this article. Another common misconception is that
anyone who can speak a second language will make a good translator. In the
translation community, it ie generally accepted that the best translations are
produced by persons who are translating into their own native languages, as it
is rare for someone who has learned a second language to have total fluency in
that language. A good translator understands the source language well, has
specific experience in the subject matter of the text, and is a good writer in
the target language. Moreover, he is not only bilingual but bicultural. It has
been debated whether translation is art or craft. Literary translators, such as
Gregory Rabassa in “If this be treason”, argue that translation is an art – a
teachable one. Other translators, mostly technical, commercial, and legal,
regard their “metier” as a craft – again, a teachable one, subject to
linguistic analysis, that benefits from academic study. As with other human
activities, the distinction between art and craft may be largely a matter of
degree. Even a document which appears simple, e.g. a product brochure, requires
a certain level of linguistic skill that goes beyond mere technical
terminology. Any material used for marketing purposes reflects on the company
that produces the product and the brochure. The best translations are obtained
through the combined application of good technical-terminology skills and good
writing skills. Translation has served as a writing school for many prominent
writers. Translators, including the early modern European translators of the
Bible, in the course of their work have shaped the very languages into which
they have translated. They have acted as bridges for conveying knowledge and
ideas between cultures and civilizations. Along with ideas, they have imported,
into their own languages, loanwords and calques of grammatical structures,
idioms and vocabulary from the source language. Interpreting, or
“interpretation”, is the intellectual activity that consists of facilitating
oral or sign-language communication, either simultaneously or consecutively,
between two or among three or more speakers who are not speaking, or signing,
the same language. The words “interpreting” and “interpretation” both can be
used to refer to this activity; the word “interpreting” is commonly used in the
profession and in the translation-studies field to avoid confusion with other meanings
of the word “interpretation”. Not all languages employ, as English does, two
separate words to denote the activities of written and live-communication (oral
or sign-language) translators. Even English does not always make the
distinction, frequently using “translation” as a synonym of “interpretation”,
especially in nontechnical usage. Interpreting has been in exsistence ever
since man has used the spoken word. It has therefore always played a vital role
in the relationships between people of different origins since the beginning of
mankind. However, there is a lack of hard evidence pinpointing the time of the
creation of interpreting due to the fact that interpreting, unlike written
translations, leaves behind no written proof. The first written proof of
interpreting dates back to 3000 BC, at which time the Ancient Egyptians had a
hieroglyphic signifying “interpreter”. The next widely known use of
interpreting occurred in Ancient Greece and Rome. For both the Ancient Greeks
and Romans, learning the language of the people that they conquered was
considered very undignified. Therefore, slaves, prisoners and ethnic hybrids
were forced to learn multiple languages and interpret for the nobility.
Futhermore, during this era and up until the 17th century. Latin was
the lingua franca, or the language of diplomacy, in Europe, and therefore all
nations had to have some citizens who spoken latin in order to carry on
diplomatic relations. Throughout the centuries, interpreting became more and
more widely spread due to number of factors. One such factor is religion. The
people of many different religions throughout history have journeyed into
international territories in order to share and teach their beliefs. For
example, 17th and 18th centuries AD, many Arabs were in
West Africa in order to trade. Along with commerce, however, the Arabs
introduced Islam to the Africans, and Arabic, the language of the Koran, became
ever more important. Interpreters assisted in spreading the word of the Koran
to the local villages. Another religion that has always yearned to explaned its
borders is Christianity. In 1253, William of Rubruck was sent by Louis IX on an
expedition into Asia accompained by interpreters. This was one of the very
first large-scale pure mission trips: William's sole purpose was to spread the word
of God. Another factor that played a large role in the advancement of
interpreting was the Age of Exploration. With so many expeditions to explore
new lands, people were bound to come across others who spoke a different
language. One of the most famous interpreters in history came out of the Age of
Exploration, specifically the early 16th century. This interpreter
was of Mexican descent, and served Cortes on his crusades. Her name was Dona
Marina, also known as “La Malinche”. La Malinche serves as good example of the
feelings held toward interpreters in the Age of Exploration. Because the
interpreters that helped the conquerors were often of native descent, their own
people often felt that they were traitors, regardless of the circumstance and
whether or not they were interpreting voluntarily. On the other hand, however,
these people served as a connection between the native population and the
explorers. The explorers therefore treasured these go-betweens. Furthermore,
interpreters enabled many pacts and treaties to occur that otherwise would not
have been possible; they have played a large role in the formation of the world
that we know today.
History of
translation
The first
important translation in the West was that of the Septuagint, a collection of
Jewish Scriptures translated into Koine Greek in Alexandria between the 3rd
and 1st centuries BCE. The dispersed Jws had forgotten their
ancestral language and needed Greek versions of their Scriptures. Throughout
the Middle Ages, Latin was the “lingua franca” of the western learned world.
The 9th century Alfred the Great, king of Wessex in England, was far
ahead of his time in commissioning vernacular Anglo-Saxon translations of Bede's Ecclesiastical History and Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. Meanwhile
the Christian Church frowned on even partial adaptations of the standard Latin
Bible, St.Jerome's Vulgate. In Asia, the
spread of Buddhism led to large-scale ongoing translation efforts spanning well
over a thousand years. The Tangut Empire was especially efficient in such
efforts; exploiting the then newly-invented block printing, and with the full
support of the government (contemporary sources describe the Emperor and his
mother personally contributing to the translation effort, alongside sages of
various nationalities), the Tanguts took mere decades to translate volumes that
had taken the Chinese centuries to render. Large-scale efforts at translation
were undertaken by the Arabs. Having conquered the Greek world, they made
Arabic versions of its philosophical and scientific works. During the Middle
Ages, some translations of these Arabic versions were made into Latin, chiefly
at Cordoba in Spain. Such Latin translations of Greek and original Arab works
of scholarship and science would help advance the development of European
Scholasticism. The broad historic trends in Western translation practice may be
illustrated on the example of translation into the English language. The first
fine translation into English were made by England's first great poet, the 14th
century Geoffrey Chaucer, who adapted from Italian of Giovanni Boccaccio in his
own Knight's Tale and Troilus and
Criseyde; began a translation of the French language Roman de la Rose; and
completed a translation of Boethius from the Latin. Chaucer founded an English
poetic tradition on adaptations and translations from those earlier-established
literary languages. The first great English translation was the Wycliffe Bible,
which showed the weaknesses of an underdeveloped English prose. Only at the end
of the 15th century would the great age of English prose translation
begin with Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur – an adaptation of Arthurian ramances so free that it
can, in fact, hardly be called a true translation. The first great Tudor
translations are, accordingly, the Tyndale New Testament (1525), which would
influence the Authorized Version (1611), and Lord Berners' version of Jean Froissart's Chronicles (1523-25). Meanwhile, in
Renaissance Italy, a new period in the history of translation had opened in
Florence with the arrival, at the court of Cosimo de' Medici, of the Byzantine scholar
Georgius Gemistus Pletho shortly before the fall of Constantinople to the Turks
(1453). A Latin translation of Plato's works was undertaken by Marsilio Ficino. This and Erasmus' Latin edition of the New Testament
led to a new attitude to translation. For the first time, readers demanded
rigor of rendering, as philosophical and religious beliefs depended on the
exact words of Plato, Aristotle and Jesus. The Elizabethan period of
translation saw considerable progress beyond mere paraphrase toward an ideal of
stylistic equivalence, but even to the end of this period – which actually
reached to the middle of the 17th century – there was no concern for
verbal accuracy. In the second half of the 17th century, the poet
John Dryden sought to make Virgil speak “in words such as he would probably
have written if he were living and an Englishman”. Dryden, however, discerned
no need to emulate the Roman port's subtlety and concision. Similarly, Homer suffered from Alexander Pope's endeavor to reduce the greek poet's “wild paradise” to order. Throughout
the 18th century, the watchword of translators was ease of reading.
Whatever they did not understand in a text, or thought might bore readers, they
omitted. They cheerfully assumed that their own style of expression was the
best, and that text should be made to conform to it in translation. For
scholarship they cared no more than had their predecessors, and they did not
shrink from making translations from translations in third languages, or from
languages that they hardly knew, or – as in the case of James Macpherson's “translations” of Ossian – from
texts that were actually of the “translator's” own composition. The 19th
century brought new standards of accuracy and style. In regard to accuracy,
observes J.M.Cohen, the policy became “the text, the whole text, and nothing
but the text”, except for any bawdy passages and the addition of copious
explanotory footnotes. In regard to style, the Victorians' aim, achieved through far-reaching
metaphrase or pseudo-metaphrase, was to constantly remind readers that they
were reading a foreign classic. An exception was the outstanding translation in
this period. Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1859), which achieved its Oriental Flavor
largely by using Persian names and discreet Biblical echoes and actually drew little
of its material from the Persian original. In advance of the 20th
century, a new pattern was set in 1871 by Benjamin Jowett, who translated Plato
into simple, straightforward language. Jowett's example was not followed, however,
until well into the new century, when accuracy rather than style became the
principal criterion.
History of
theory
Discussions of
the theory and practice of translation reach back into antiquity and show
remarkable continuities. The distinction that had been drawn by the ancient Greeks between
"metaphrase" ("literal" translation) and "paraphrase" would
be adopted by the English poet
and translator John Dryden
(1631-1700), who represented translation as the judicious blending of these two
modes of phrasing when selecting, in the target language,
"counterparts," or equivalents, for the expressions used in the
source language:
When [words]
appear... literally graceful, it were an injury to the author that they should
be changed. But since... what is beautiful in one [language] is often barbarous,
nay sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a
translator to the narrow compass of his author's words: 'tis enough if he
choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense. Dryden cautioned, however, against
the license of "imitation," i.e. of adapted translation: "When a
painter copies from the life... he has no privilege to alter features and
lineaments..." This general formulation of the central concept of
translation — equivalence — is probably as adequate as any
that has been proposed ever since Cicero
and Horace, in
first-century-BCE Rome,
famously and literally cautioned against translating "word for word"
("verbum pro verbo"). Despite occasional theoretical diversities, the
actual practice of translators has hardly changed since antiquity. Except for
some extreme metaphrasers in the early Christian period and
the Middle Ages, and
adapters in various periods (especially pre-Classical Rome, and the 18th
century), translators have generally shown prudent flexibility in seeking equivalents — "literal" where
possible, paraphrastic where
necessary — for the original meaning and other crucial "values" (e.g., style, verse form,
concordance with musical accompaniment
or, in films, with speech articulatory movements) as determined from context. In
general, translators have sought to preserve the context itself by reproducing
the original order of sememes,
and hence word order — when
necessary, reinterpreting the actual grammatical structure.
The grammatical differences between "fixed-word-order" languages (e.g.,
English, French, German) and
"free-word-order" languages (e.g., Greek, Latin, Polish, Russian) have been no
impediment in this regard. When a target language has lacked terms that are found
in a source language, translators have borrowed them, thereby enriching the
target language. Thanks in great measure to the exchange of calques and loanwords between
languages, and to their importation from other languages, there are few concepts that are
"untranslatable"
among the modern European languages. In general, the greater the
contact and exchange that has existed between two languages, or between both
and a third one, the greater is the ratio of metaphrase to paraphrase that may be
used in translating between them. However, due to shifts in "ecological niches"
of words, a common etymology
is sometimes misleading as a guide to current meaning in one or the other
language. The English
"actual," for example, should not be confused with the cognate French "actuel"
(meaning "present," "current") or the Polish "aktualny"
("present," "current"). The translator's role as
a bridge for
"carrying across" values between cultures has been
discussed at least since Terence,
Roman adapter of Greek comedies, in the second century BCE. The translator's
role is, however, by no means a passive and mechanical one, and so has also
been compared to that of an artist.
The main ground seems to be the concept of parallel creation found in critics
as early as Cicero. Dryden observed that
"Translation is a type of drawing after life..." Comparison of the
translator with a musician
or actor goes back at
least to Samuel
Johnson's remark about Alexander Pope playing
Homer on a flageolet, while Homer
himself used a bassoon. If
translation be an art, it is no easy one. In the 13th century, Roger Bacon wrote that
if a translation is to be true, the translator must know both languages, as well as
the science that he is to
translate; and finding that few translators did, he wanted to do away with
translation and translators altogether. The first European to assume that one
translates satisfactorily only toward his own language may have been Martin Luther,
translator of the Bible into German. According to
L.G. Kelly, since Johann Gottfried Herder in the 18th century, "it has been
axiomatic" that one works only toward his own language.Compounding these demands
upon the translator is the fact that not even the most complete dictionary or thesaurus can ever be
a fully adequate guide in translation. Alexander Tytler, in
his Essay on the Principles of Translation (1790), emphasized that assiduous reading
is a more comprehensive guide to a language than are dictionaries. The same
point, but also including listening
to the spoken
language, had earlier been made in 1783 by Onufry Andrzej Kopczyński, member of Poland's Society for Elementary
Books, who was called "the last Latin poet." The special role of the
translator in society was well described in an essay, published posthumously in
1803, by Ignacy Krasicki – “Poland's La Fontaine”, Primate of Poland, poet, encyclopedist, author of the
first Polish novel, and translator from French and Greek: Translation… is in
fact an art both estimable and very difficult, and therefore is not the labor
and portion of common minds; It should be practiced by those who are themselves
capable of being actors, when they see greater use in translating the works of
others than in their own works, and hold higher than their own glory the
service that they render to their country.
Development of
the theory of translation in the twentieth century
Modern Western
Schools of translation theory and translation After World War II, science and
technology, linguistics and translation undertakings flourish, machine
translation is quietly rising. People's views on translation also will be
changed. Translation is not only an art or skill, but also a science, and
literature and art, sociology, psychology, information theory and the theory
NC, and other related disciplines but their own systems science. Translation
theory studies, is no longer confined to philosophers, writers and translators,
language and translation to become an expert in the study of systems of the
serious issue. Therefore, the translation of Western theory further
development. Modern Western translation theory in the development of two major
characteristics: (1) theoretical research into linguistics areas, the modern
linguistics and the impact of information theory, and thus the obvious color of
linguistics, and the traditional theory of literary translation in stark
contrast; (2) In the past theorists behind closed doors, not contact with the
situation be broken. On the theorists through, magazines, essays, etc., fully
express their views. In addition, as means of transportation, publishing
industry and the progress of the emergence of international academic
organizations, countries translation theorists keep close contacts between the
academic exchanges have been strengthened. Modern Western translation theory
there are four main schools: Prague faction, London faction, the United States sent structure and Communication Theory camp. The founder of the School for Mahi
Hughes (Vilem Mathesius), the Kuwaiti and Iraqi Telubeishi (Nikolay S.
Trubetskoy) and Accor may Dobson (Roman Jakobson). AGB could be key members of
Dobson, Levy, Victoria, such as the translation of important theorist. The
school's main arguments: (1) must be taken into account language translation of
a variety of functions, including cognitive function, the expression of
features and tools, such as functional (2) must attach importance to language
translation of comparison, including the semantics, grammar, voice, language,
style as well as literary genre comparisons. Prague School of the most
influential theorists are Luomanya can translate Dobson. He origin Russia, the Czech Republic after resettlement; moved to the United States during World War II,
joining American. As one of the founders of the school, his main contribution
to the theory of translation reflected in the "On the translation of
Linguistics" (On Linguistic Aspects of Translation) are. Articles from the
perspective of linguistics, translation of the importance of the relationship
between language and translation, as well as the existing problems are
brilliant expositions. Since 1959 after the publication of this article has
been Western theoretical circles as a translation of the classic. Accor Dobson
can be discussed five major points: (1) Translation divided into three
categories: language, translation (intralingual translation), the
Inter-translation (interlingual translation), and at the occasion of
translation (intersemiotic translation). Within the so-called language
translation, refers to the same language used in some language other symbols to
explain the language symbols, which are usually "change that"
(rewording). The so-called inter-language translation refers to two languages
in one language that is the sign to explain the symbols in another language,
that is, the translation of the strict sense. At the occasion of the so-called
translation, refers to non-verbal symbol system explained linguistic symbols,
or using symbols to explain non-verbal language symbols, such as the Qiyu words
or gestures become. (2) Meaning depends on the understanding of translation. He
said that in language learning and linguistic understanding of the process of
translation played a decisive role. (3) Accurate information on the translation
symmetry. Translation is involved in two different languages on the website,
and other information. (4) All languages have the same ability. If the language
in vocabulary insufficient, it will be adopted by the word coinage or
interpretation of the language, and other methods for processing. (5)
Translation Grammar area is the most complex issue. This is the presence of
state, and a few, such as changes in the form of the language syntax,
especially complex. United Kingdom London School is a school with the language,
language that is the significance of the use of language from the social
environment (the social context of situation) decision. In the field of
translation studies, translation and the original wording of the same depends
on whether they used the same language environment. London School of the founder of the Fox (JR Firth). Two articles focus reflects the translation of
theory, a "Linguistics and Translation" (Linguistics and Translation)
and the other one as "linguistic analysis and translation"
(Linguistic Analysis and Translation). Falls focused on the following three
areas: (1) language analysis is the basis of translation (2) translation does
not mean completely perfect translation; (3) in any two languages in the
translation, a certain sense of language means of expression, such as it is
impossible to totally another language. Catford (John Catford) is the school
system in comparison to the theory of translation scholars. Teaches at the University of Edinburgh Catford 1965 published "translation Linguistic Theory" (A
Linguistic Theory of Translation) a book for translation theory developing new
channels, caused a huge reaction. Catford theory called "descriptive"
of translation theory. He translated from the nature, type, and so on,
conversion, such as limits explain "what is the translation of the"
The central issue. (1) The nature of translation. Translation is "a
language of the (former) that the text materials into another language (target
language), such as the text of the material." (2) Translation category. On
its extent, can be divided into "translation of the full text of"
(full translation) and "partially translated" (partial translation);
level on the terms of their language, can be divided into "complete
translation" (total translation) and "limited Translation" (
restricted translation); on the registration of language structure, can be
divided into "restricted class" of translation and the
"unlimited class" translation, namely the traditional sense, "a
verbatim translation" and the "translation" and "literal
translation" between the two between. (3) The translation of the problems.
On the one hand, and so is a translation of the experience as the basis to the
phenomenon is based on a comparison of the two languages and discovered the
other hand, such as the translation of a text and asked to see whether the same
or part of the same substantive characteristics. (4) Translation conversion
refers to the original form of a deviation from the corresponding asked.
Translation conversion level conversion and are divided into areas of
conversion, which conversion can be divided into areas of structural
transformation, parts of speech conversion, unit conversion and four within the
system conversion. (5) Translation of the limits is that Untranslatability
issues. There are two types of translation in the untranslatability. First, the
language of Untranslatability phenomenon Puns, superoxide Italy grammatical
structure; Second, the cultural untranslatability is due to the different
social customs, different era background, and other non-language factors. Structure
of the United States is the language school representative cloth dragon
Rumsfeld. He made an act of semantic analysis, that means that the stimulus and
response between the existence of language relations. In the 1950s,
cloth-Rumsfeld Chomsky's theory of the transformation of production replaced by
the theory. Jiaozhi theory has three viewpoints: (1) human language ability is
innate; (2) Language is unencumbered by the rules; (3) surface structure and
language, including deep structure. The theory of translation studies in the
major impact on the surface structure and its deep structure on. Mainly lies in
the different languages of the respective different surface structures, and
deep structure is a common feature. Linguistic theory in the above under the
influence, creating Wozhelin (CF Voegelin), Bo Ling grid (D. Bolinger), Katz
(JJ Katz), Kuien (WV Quine) and Nida (EU Nida), represented Translation Theory
sector of the United States of the school structure, and to Nida's most
outstanding. Nida Communication is the representative of translation theory.
His translation theory can be summarized as the following six aspects: (1) the
theoretical principles. All languages have the same ability, and the primary
task is to translate that readers can be asked at a glance. (2) The nature of
translation. According to Nida's the definition of "so-called translation,
refers to the style from the semantic (style) in the target language using the
most natural reproduction of the original language, such as the phrase information."
Three of them are the key: First, "in accord with the natural," I can
not have translation cavity; second is the "natural" choice on the
basis of the closest to the original meaning and asked the third is a
"reciprocal", this is the core. Therefore, the translation must meet
four criteria: (a) to express (b) and vivid; (c) natural language English and
(d) similar to the reader responses. (3) Translation function. From the social
linguistics and language communication function standpoint, Nida that must be
translated for readers service targets. (4) The correct translation.
Translation: correct depends on to what extent the readers can understand
correctly asked. (5) Semantic analysis. One of the important process of
translation of the original is a semantic analysis. Semantics can be divided
into three types: grammatical meaning, the meaning and significance of
connotations. (6) The procedures and methods of translation. In his view, the
entire translation process is divided into four steps: analysis,
interpretation, Reorganization (language translation by the rules of
re-organization asked) and examined. Since the 1980s, the translation of theory
Nida a larger change. The main new viewpoints: (1) Translation is not science,
but technology; (2) Translation can be born; (3) translation is not only a
language communicative activities, but also a symbol of social interaction
(sociosemiotic interaction) activities. In addition, there are more
representative of Germany's Leipzig School and the former Soviet Union, such as
schools. In short, the 20th century theory of the development of the West's
largest translation feature is included in translation studies linguistics,
comparative linguistics and applied linguistics and semantics, and other
established intrinsically linked. Although the western translation theory has
achieved tremendous successes, but they are in the tradition of succession on
the basis of, and did not form a complete, universal theoretical system.
Models and
types of interpreting
Interpretation
is rendered in one mode: simultaneous. In simultaneous interpreting, the
interpreter immediately speaks the message in the target-language whilst
listening to it in the source language. Consecutive interpretation is rendered
as “short consecutive interpretation” and “long consecutive interpretation”. In
short consecutive interpretation, the interpreter relies on memory; each
message segment being brief enough to memories. In long consecutive
interpretation, the interpreter takes notes of the message to aid rendering
long passages. These informal divisions are established with the client before
the interpretation is effected, depending upon the subject, its complexity, and
the purpose of the interpretation. On occasion, document sight translation is
required of the interpreter, usually in consecutive interpretation work. Sight
translation combines interpretation and translation; the interpreter must read
aloud the source-language document to the target – language as if it were
written in the target language. Sight translation occurs usually, but not
exclusively, in judicial and medical work. Relay interpretation occurs when
several languages are the target – language. A source – language interpreter
renders the message to a language common to every interpreter, who then renders
the message to his or her specific target – language. For example, a Japanese
source message first is rendered to English to a group of interpreters, then it
is rendered to Arabic, French, and Russian, the other target – languages. In
simultaneous interpretation, the interpreter renders the message in the
target-language as quickly as he or she can formulate it from the source
language, while the source-language speaker continuously speaks: sitting in a
sound-proof booth, the SI interpreter speaks into a microphone, while clearly
seeing and hearing the source-language speaker via earphones. The simultaneous
interpretation is rendered to the target-language listeners via their
earphones. Moreover, SI is the common mode used by sign language interpreters.
Note: Laymen often incorrectly describe SI and the SI interpreter as “simultaneous
translation” and as the “simultaneous translator”, ignoring the definite
distinction between interpretation and translation. In whispering interpreting,
the interpreter sits or stands next to the small target-language audience
whilst whispering a simultaneous interpretation of the matter to hand; this
method requires no equipment. Chuchotage is used in circumstances where the
majority of a group speaks the source language, and a minority (ideally no more
than three persons) do not speak it. In consecutive interpreting, the
interpreter speaks after the source-language speaker has finished speaking. The
speech is divided into segments, and CI interpreter sits or stands beside the
source-language speaker, listening and taking notes as the speaker progresses
through the message. When the speaker pauses or finishes speaking, the
interpreter then renders the entire message in the target-language. Consecutively-interpreted
speeches, or segments of them, tend to be short. Fifty years ago, the CI
interpreter would render speeches of 20 or 30 minutes, today, 10 or 15 minutes
is considered long, particularly since audiences don’t like to sit through 20
minutes of speech they cannot understand. Often, the source-language speaker is
unaware that he or she may speak at length before the CI interpretation is
rendered, and might stop after each sentence to await its target-language
rendering. Sometimes, the inexperienced or poorly trained interpreter asks the speaker
to pause after each sentence; sentence-by-sentence interpreting requires less
memorization, yet its disadvantage is in the interpreter's not having heard the entire speech
or its gist, and the overall message is harder to render both because of lack
of context and because of interrupted delivery (e.g., imagine a joke told in
bits and pieces, with breaks for translation in between). This method is often
used in rendering speeches, depositions, recorded statements, court witness
testimony, and medical and job interviews, but it is always best to complete a
whole idea before it is translated. Full consecutive interpreting allows for
the source-language message's full meaning to be understood before the interpreter renders it to the
target language. This affords a truer, accurate, and accessible interpretation
than does simultaneous interpretation. Liaison interpreting involves relaying
what is spoken to one, between two, or among many people. This can be done after
a short speech, or consecutively, sentence-by-sentence, or as chuchotage
(whispering); aside from note taken then, no equipment is used. Conference
interpreting is the interpretation of a conference, either simultaneously or
consecutively, although the advent of multi-lingual meetings has consequently
reduced the consecutive interpretation in the last 20 years. Conference
interpretation is divided between two markets: the institutional and private.
International institutions, holding multi-lingual meetings, often favour
interpreting several foreign languages to the interpreters' mother tongues. Local private
markets tend to bi-lingual meetings (the local language plus another) and the
interpreters work both into and out of their mother tongues; the markets are
not mutually exclusive. The International Association of Conference
Interpreters (AIIC) is the only world-wide association of conference
interpreters. Founded in 1953, it assembles more than 2.800 professional
conference interpreters in more than 90 countries. Legal, court, or judicial
interpreting, occurs in courts of justice, administrative tribunals, and
wherever a legal proceeding is held (i.e. a conference room for a deposition or
the locale for taking a sworn statement). Legal interpreting can be the
consecutive interpretation of witnesses' testimony for example, or the
simultaneous interpretation of entire proceedings, by electronic means, for one
person, or all of the people attending. The right to a component interpreter
for anyone who does not understand the language of the court (especially for
the accused in a criminal trial) is usually considered a fundamental rule of
justice. Therefore, this right is often guaranteed in national constitutions,
declarations of rights, fundamental laws establishing the justice system or by
precedents set by the highest courts. Depending upon the regulations and
standards adhered to per state and venue, court interpreters usually work alone
when interpreting consecutively, or as a team, when interpreting simultaneously.
In addition to practical mastery of the source and target languages, through
knowledge of law and legal and court procedures is required of court
interpreters. They often are required to have formal authorization from the
State to work in the Courts – and then are called sworn interpreters. In many
jurisdictions, the interpretation is considered an essential part of the
evidence. Incompetent interpretation, or simply to swear in the interpreter,
can lead to a mistrial. In focus group interpreting, an interpreter sits in a
sound proof booth or in on observer's room with the clients. There is usually a one way mirror
between the interpreter and the focus group participants, wherein the
interpreter can observe the participants, but they only see their own
reflection. The interpreter hears the conversation in the original language
through headphones and simultaneously interpreters into the target language for
the clients. Since there are usually anywhere between 2 to 12 (or more)
participants in any given focus group, experienced interpreters will not only
interpret the phrases and meaning but will also mimic intonation, speech
patterns, tone, laughs, and emotions. In escort interpreting, an interpreter
accompanies a person or a delegation on a tour, on a visit, or to a meeting or
interview. An interpreter in this role is called an escort interpreter or an
escorting interpreter. This is liaison interpreting. Also known as community
interpreting is the type of interpreting occurring in fields such as legal,
health, and local government, social, housing, environmental health, education,
and welfare services. In community interpreting, factors exist which determine
and affect language and communication production, such as speech's emotional content, hostile or
polarized social surroundings, its created stress, the power relationship among
participants, and the interpreter's degree of responsibility – in many cases more than extreme; in some
cases, even the life of the other person depends upon the interpreter's work. Medical interpreting is a
subset of public service interpreting, consisting of communication, among
medical personnel and the patient and his or her family, facilitated by an
interpreter, usually formally certified and qualified to provide such
interpretation services. In some situations medical employees who are
multilingual may participate part-time as members of internal language banks.
The medical interpreter must have a strong knowledge of medicine, common
medical procedures, the patient interview, the medical examination processes,
and the daily workings of the hospital or clinic were he or she works, in order
to effectively serve both the patient and the medical personnel. Moreover, and
very important, medical interpreters often are cultural liaisons for people
(regardless of language) who are unfamiliar with or uncomfortable in hospital,
clinical, or medical settings. When a hearing person speaks, an interpreter
will render the speaker's meaning into the sign language used by the deaf party. When a deaf
person signs, an interpreter will render the meaning expressed in the signs
into the spoken language for the hearing party, which is sometimes referred to
as voice interpreting or voicing. This may be performed either as simultaneous
or consecutive interpreting, Skilled sign language interpreters will position
themselves in a room or space that allows them both to be seen by deaf
participants and heard by hearing participants clearly and to see and hear
participants clearly. In some circumstances, an interpreter may interpret from
one sign language into an alternate sign language. Deaf people also work as
interpreters. They team with hearing counterparts to provide interpretation for
deaf individuals who may not share the standard sign language used in that
country. In other cases the hearing interpreted sign may be too pidgin to be
understood clearly and the Deaf interpreter might interpret it into a more
clear translation. They also relay information from one form of language to
another – for example, when a person is signing visually, the deaf interpreter
could be hired to copy those signs into a deaf-blind person's hand plus include visual information.
By its very nature, media interpreting has to be conducted in the simultaneous
mode. It is provided particularly for live television coverages such as press
conferences, live or taped interviews with political figures, musicians,
artists, sportsmen or people from the business circle. In this type of
interpreting, the interpreter has to sit in a sound-proof booth where ideally
he/she can see the speakers on a monitor ant the set. All equipment should be
checked before recording begins. In particular, satellite connections have to
be double-checked to ensure that the interpreter's voice is not sent back and the
interpreter gets to hear only one channel at a time. In the case of interviews
recorded outside the studio and some current affairs programme, the interpreter
interprets what he or she hears on a TV monitor. Background noise can be a
serious problem. The interpreter working for the media has to sound as slick
and confident as a television presenter. Media interpreting has gained more
visibility and presence especially after the Gulf War. Television channels have
begun to hire staff simultaneous interpreters. The interpreter renders the
press conference, telephone beepers, interviews and similar live coverage for
the viewers. It is more stressful than other types of interpreting as the
interpreter has to deal with a wide range of technical problems coupled with
the control room's
hassle and wrangling during live coverage.
Simultaneous
and machine translation
Up to the end
of the twentieth at the international congresses, conferences and meetings
consecutive translation was practiced: the speech of orator was translated in
other working languages after its performance. “Depending on the amount of
working languages accepted at the assembly of the delegates, each performance
was consistently repeated from a tribune several times, that resulted a large
loss of time. Only at the end of the 20th incidentally was practiced
translation of speeches simultaneously with their listening, which has received
its name of simultaneous translation. “It is often argued that the first War
Crimes trial (Nuremberg Trial) could not have possible simultaneous interpretation.
The highlights of the early postwar period included the active participation of
Soviet interpreters in the Nuremberg Trial and the Tokyo Trial of major
Japanese war criminals. The real baptism of fire for a large group of Russian
conference interpreters was the International Economic Conference held in Moscow in 1952. Since the 19th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, simultaneous
translation has been more widely used on such occasions. The technique and
hardware of simultaneous interpretation, at first somewhat crude and primitive,
were gradually upgraded approaching international standards including a speaker's microphone, system of posting,
headphones and microphones of the interpreters (mounted in special cabins) and
headphones for the participants”. Each participant, being connected to the
appropriate translation cabin, received an opportunity to listen to translation
of speech simultaneously with the performance. The simultaneous translation
gave significant economy of time, especially on the international meetings,
where several working languages were used. Simultaneous translation gradually
pressed consecutive translation and up to the present time became the basic
kind of translation at all multilateral international forums. Being the top of
the interpreting mastery, it drew my interest towards writing the project on
this topic. Besides, as it appeared to be, there is not so much written about
exact advices of interpreters or especially for teaching simultaneous
translation. Besides, even the best methodology will not create a
super-professional interpreter, but using these techniques it is possible to upgrade
the level of interpretation skills. The difficulty is that there are only
theoretical works concerning this topic and not so many practical advices and
exercises for the future interpreters training. Simultaneous translation
is one of the most complicated kinds of translation. The main feature of
simultaneous translation consists of parallel perception of speech of the
orator and giving out the speech in language of translation. This feature of
simultaneous translation defines other features of this kind and first of all
the rigid limit of time: the interpreter has only the period of pronouncing the
speech by the speaker for translation. This time is twice less than what the
interpreter has at consecutive translation, and in 20-30 times less, than at written
text translation of the same speech. The interpreter has not only less time for
translation, but also is imposed to the rate of translation, which should
correspond to the rate of pronouncing the speech. Besides simultaneous
translation has such special feature as segmental character: the interpreter
translates the text in segments in process of their receipt, whereas during
consecutive translation (as well as at written translation of written
materials) the interpreter listens to the whole text. These features make
simultaneous translation very difficult for learning. To simultaneous
translation, perhaps, the traditional formula is almost not applied: in order
to translation one needs to know two languages and subject of conversation. It
is known, that not every man freely speaking foreign language is capable to
take possession translation. First, preparation of the oral interpreters
included mass ideological preparation, which completely brought to nothing a
professional etiquette of the oral interpreter. Ideological sense of
translation in the Soviet spirit was put much above its accuracy. Some decent
interpreters tried to avoid it. It is where the opinion about harm of training
came from. Second, the thematic principle was frequently practiced in training
the interpreters (and is practiced still now). This principle is seen in narrow
specialization of the training books: “The Textbook of military translation”,
“Translation of the chemical texts”. The thematic orientation of training is on
the decline, not only because it educates the interpreters with a narrow
professional outlook; its main disadvantage consists of mixing different things
– knowledge on a theme and professional skills. In other words, knowledge about
what to be spoken in the text and knowledge of what to be done with the text. And
finally, the third feature, which is, perhaps, most essential for the Russian
history of translation. Traditionally, to tell the truth, interpreters were
considered as the interpreters of fiction. The theorists of translation focused
their attention on fiction as deserving primary attention. Consequently,
frequent answer to a question, whether it is possible to learn translation, is
understood only in application to fiction. And the answer at once caused difficulties.
The art of translation requires such huge volume of background erudition,
additional knowledge and performance of complex texture of translation tasks
that frequently the thesis about creativeness is put forward, where reigns
inspiration. The skill of translating fiction is a specific skill, and though
the possession of it is impossible without some rules working for translation
of any text, but nevertheless it does not guarantee to the interpreter the
skill to translate non-fiction. It is necessary to tell, that intuition and
inspiration, which helps to feel and to transfer complex and fine stylistics,
individual style and much of other things in translation, prevents the
interpreter to take the higher level of wider generalizations, and he would not
be able to distribute the personal experience to work with the non-fiction
texts, what simply means that the interpreter of fiction frequently, simply
speaking, is not able to translate the non-fiction. And nevertheless,
definitely: it is possible to learn! The experience of many translation schools
of the world shows it. Training there is constructed differently, but always
contains a constant set of obligatory components and gives the result. And
common sense tells us that to learn is not only possible, but also necessary:
it is impossible in the modern world to start up development of this important
trade without paying attention. It harms the quality of translation production
and reduces prestige of a profession. Machine translation (MT) is a procedure whereby a computer
program analyzes a source
text and produces a target text without further human intervention.
In reality, however, machine translation typically does involve human
intervention, in the form of pre-editing and post-editing. An exception to that
rule might be, e.g., the translation of technical specifications (strings of technical terms and
adjectives), using a dictionary-based machine-translation system. To
date, machine translation—a major goal of natural-language processing—has met with limited success. A
November 6,2007, example illustrates the hazards of uncritical reliance on machine
translation. Machine translation has been brought to a large public
by tools available on the Internet, Such as Yahoo!'s Babel Fish, Babylon, and StarDict.
This tools produce a “gisting translation” – a rough translation that, with
luck, “gives the gist” of the source text. With proper terminology work, with
preparation of the source
text for machine translation (pre-editing), and with re-working of the machine
translation by a professional human translator (post-editing), commercial
machine-translation tools can produce useful results, especially if the
machine-translation system is integrated with a translation – memory or
globalization – management system. In regard to texts (e.g., weather reports)
with limited ranges of vocabulary and simple sentence structure, machine
translation can deliver results that do not require much human intervention to
be useful. Also, the use of a controlled language, combined with a
machine-translation tool, will typically generate largely comprehensible
translations. Relying exclusively on unedited machine translation ignores the
fact that communication in human language is context – embedded and that it
takes a person to comprehend the context of the original text with a reasonable
degree of probability. It is certainly true that even purely human-generated
translations are prone to error. Therefore, to ensure that a machine-generated
translation will be useful to a human being and that publishable-quality
translation is achieved, such translations must be reviewed and edited by a human.
The late Claude Piron wrote that machine translation, at its best, automates
the easier part of a translator's job; the harder and more time-consuming part
usually involves doing extensive research to resolve ambiguities in the source
text, which the grammatical and lexical exigencies of the target language
require to be resolved. Such research is a necessary prelude to the pre-editing
necessary in order to provide input for machine-translation software such that
the output will not be meaningless. The lessons of machine translations's first 50 years aren't the kind we are used to hearing
from our best and brightest machines: Make peace with stubborn limitations, cut
the hype, think in the scale of decades of gradual evolution, forget about
breakthoughs. In our laptops, we already have memory capacity and processing
apeed that would have been barely imaginable in the age of the tube-driven
mainframes, but machine translation historian John Hutchins believes that even
“infinite computer power is not a solution”. What is needed, he says, is deeper
insight into the processes of language and cognition. “there is no such thing
as ‘perfect’ translation”, he adds. “There are only translations more or less
suitable or successful for specific purposes and contexts”.
Cognitive
scientist Steven Pinker, author of Words and Rules, believes that with
increased understanding of the structure of language to create more subtle
linguistic maps, boosts in chip speed to accelerate the gathering of
statistical data from texts, and refinements in the building of world models,
machine translation will improve in small but significant increments in the
next few years. “The better it works,” Pinker says, “the less it will be called
machine translation. It will just be called software”. It's clear that to do their job as
translators, computers will have to rely on what is most human in us: the
capacity to negotiate meaning. Even when hair-tearing levels of innacuracy are
introduced into chat room dialogue, Jennifer DeCamp, of Mitre Corporation, a
federally funded IT think tank, points out that rapid back-and-forth exchanges
can offer plenty of opportunities for what she calls “conversational repair”.
Willingness to tolerate uncertainty and emrathetic leaps of understanding are
what keep conversations on course in any medium. Research in machine
translation has developed traditional patterns which wil clearly have to be
broken if any real progress is to be made. The traditional view that the
problem is principally a linguistic one is clearly not tenable but the
alternative that require a translation system to have a substantial part of the
general knowledge of restricted domains can facilitate the translaton of the
texts in those domains. The most obvious gains will come from giving up, at
least for the time being, the idea of machine translation as a fully automatic
batch process in favor of one in which the task is apportioned between people
and machines. The proposal made in according to which the translation machine
would consult with a human speaker of the source language with detailed
knowledge of the subject matter, has attracted more attention in recent times.
A major objection to this approach, namely that the cost of operating such a
system would come close to that of doing the whole job in the traditional way,
will probably not hold up in the special, but widespread situation in which a
single document has to be translated into a large number of languages.
Conclusion
It is
impossible to imagine our modern society without translation and interpreting.
People all over the world communicate with each other in different spheres:
art, medicine, science, technology, politics, and music. Of course, a lot of
people know foreign languages, but they also need the interpreters and
translators service as well. Only in tandem they can achieve good success. If a
person has chosen the profession of interpreter, all his life turns into study,
with rare, casual breaks. First of all, any language develops, any society does
it, any relations do it too. Of course any interpreter or translator must know
the theory of translation which differs him from any person who knows foreign
language. The theory of translation is his main tool which gives him knowledge
and strength. In the first chapter of the work the attention was paid to the
history of interpreting and establishing of the translation theory. The
difference between translation and interpreting was shown. Models of
interpreting, such as simultaneous interpreting, consecutive interpreting,
whispered interpreting, liaison interpreting were described. The attention was
also paid to the types of interpreting. The second chapter of the work was
devoted to the development of the theory of translation in the twentieth
century. As the past century was famous for its communication boom, the theory
of translation was also influenced. The communication among people made the
theory develop in order to be more useful and helpful. In this vary chapter
some modern western schools of translation were described. The strong and weak
points of the basic were also shown there. In the second chapter attention was
also paid to the main popular modern types of interpreting and translation. Simultaneous
translation is of great importance nowadays. Comparing with other types of
interpreting and translation it is the most complicated type of interpreting,
and it is more perfect form of consecutive translation. To perform such kind of
interpreting, a person must be good prepared and well-trained. Simultaneous
translation is both art and talent. And as any art it requires a talent, which
is impossible to learn. However any talent requires development and constant
perfection. Machine translation is also very popular and useful nowadays. There
are a lot of special computer programs which make the process of translation
easier. But machine translation without final correction is always clumsy and
awful, it needs the corrections of the translator. And if you know foreign
language very well, such kind of translation will help you in your work, making
it faster and easier. This work may be interesting for students of foreign
language faculties, teachers and young translators as well. The information
given there will be useful and helpful for them. It will be also interesting
for those who are going to be interpreters or translators.
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