LIVRO PROPRIETARIO - FUNDAMENTOS DA TRADUCAO EM LINGUA INGLESA.pdf

FUNDAMENTOS DA TRADUÇÃO EM LÍNGUA INGLESA

autora ELAINE CHRISTINA MOTA

1ª edição SESES rio de janeiro

2016

Conselho editorial

luis claudio dallier saldanha; roberto paes; gladis linhares;

karen bortoloti; marilda franco de moura elaine christina mota

Autora do original Projeto editorial

roberto paes

Coordenação de produção

gladis linhares

Coordenação de produção EaD

paulo vitor bastos

Projeto gráfico Diagramação

karen fernanda bortoloti

bfs media

Revisão linguística Imagem de capa

bfs media marcio silva | dreamstime.com

Todos os direitos reservados. Nenhuma parte desta obra pode ser reproduzida ou transmitida por quaisquer meios (eletrônico ou mecânico, incluindo fotocópia e gravação) ou arquivada em qualquer sistema ou banco de dados sem permissão escrita da Editora. Copyright seses, 2016.

Dados Internacionais de Catalogação na Publicação (cip) M917f Mota, Mota, Elaine Christina

Fundamentos da tradução em língua inglesa / Elaine Christina Mota Rio de Janeiro : SESES, SESES, 2016. 152 p. : il. isbn: 978-85-5548-189-5 1. Tradução. 2. Teoria. 3. Problemas. 4. Soluções. I. SESES. II. Estácio. cdd 420

Diretoria de Ensino — Fábrica de Conhecimento Rua do Bispo, 83, bloco F, Campus João Uchôa Rio Comprido — Rio de Janeiro — rj — cep 20261-063

Sumário Prefácio

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1. Introduction to the World Of Translation, Job Market and Types of Transl ranslation ation

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1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4

The History of Translation Myths about translation Job market Types and methods of translation

2. Translation and the Branches of Linguistics 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5

Linguistics and Translation Psycholinguistics and Translation Sociolinguistics and Translation The 3Cs of Translation and units of translation Methods of Translation

3. Practical Issues of Translation 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5

Articles Gerund vs. Infinitive Indirect speech Causative forms Progressive aspects

11 14 17 21

31 34 40 43 47 55

61 65 68 74 77 80

4. More Practical Issues of Translation 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5

The present perfect The present perfect continuous Confusing verbs Phrasal verbs False cognates

5. Cultural Challenges and Register: Register: Meaning and Importance 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4

Colloquial expressions vs. idiomatic expressions Slang terms Proverbs Types of register

91 94 101 103 105 109

119 124 128 132 135

Prefácio Dear student,  Welcome to the wonderful world of translation and its maze full of surprises at each corner! The foundation of the book lies in the principle that quite a few things and facts are worthy of your attention before any attempt of an actual translation. Obviously enough, you will practice little by little until the reaching point of a longer text. This care happens due to some myths and overuse of technology in an area that has always depended and will keep on depending on human minds for no computer is able to do what people do best: cultural and linguistic associations on a very regular basis according to the needs of a client or the translator themselves. In the first chapter, you will come across a little bit of the history of translation, how the market works for those who are willing to venture further into this world and the types and methods of translation. Chapter 2 will show you how Linguistics and its branches – Sociolinguistics and Psycholinguistics – are essential while translating. The third chapter will help you deal with some difficult structural and lexical elements of the languages involved. Chapter 4 will scare away the ghost of traumatic grammar topics, such as the present perfect and some phrasal verbs. In chapter 5, you will be kindly greeted by lexical structures and the correct register for each situation. Shall we start our adventure?

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1 Introduction to the World Of Transl ranslation, ation, Job Market and Types Of Translation

Before we start, it is imperative that we define translation. First of all, the word “translation” literally means “carry across”, “bring across”, “lead across”. If  you think of it, translating something does not concern only languages; it’s about understanding something and putting it into words only after it has been turned into ideas. As obvious as it may seem, not everybody agrees on how to define “translation”.

What is translation for you? What does it really mean? Before you keep reading, take some time to think about it.

In his The translator’s Invisibility , Lawrence Venutti says that

Translation is, of course, a rewriting of an original text. All rewritings, whatever their intention, reflect a certain ideology and a poetics and as such manipulate literature to function in a given society in a given way. Rewriting is manipulation, undertaken in the service of power, and in its positive aspect can help in the evolution of a literature and a society. Rewritings can introduce new concepts, new genres, new devices, and the history of translation is the history also of literary innovation, of the shaping power of one culture upon another. But rewriting can also repress innovation, distort and contain, and in an age of ever increasing manipulation of all kinds, the study of the manipulative processes of literature as exemplified by translation can help us toward a greater awareness of the world in which we live. (1995, vii).

 While Venutti thinks of it as a rewriting, Nida (2003) thinks of it as a reproduction of the source-language message in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent, taking respectively into account both meaning and style. Mildred Larson (1997), on the other hand, is concerned about the transferring of meaning from a passage in a language to another language and on it goes: the idea and the definition of translation vary from a theorist to another along with the view they have about how to do a translation.  As one can clearly see, there are several definitions definitions of translation and even a higher number of disagreements on how it should be done. We will go over the details on why in the second chapter, though. For now, it is only important that

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 we realize re alize there is no such a thing as the “only and perfect” definition of what translating actually means and there is no perfect method. You just have to keep an open mind towards the whole process and the focus on the result, ignoring all the myths that surround it. The whole point of translating something is sending a message across an audience in a way it is not misunderstood. Furthermore, you should remember that any translation comes from a source language, which transmits an idea, which comes from a certain culture, which was created by elements found in the universe. When the translation is finally done, it becomes another language – the target language,  which has to transmit the the same idea even though it is within in another another culture that may or may not use different elements ele ments from the very same universe, as you can see in the diagram below:

Universe

Culture

Culture

Idea

Id e a

Language 1

Language 2

That is where the beauty of translation lies: in the magical moment when different cultures have gotten closer due to the correct usage of a language to transmit an idea that comes from and goes back to our vast universe, making the process endlessly amazing.

GOALS TO BE REACHED By the end of this chapter, you should be able to: •

define what a translation is and identify the myths that surround it;

•

understand and visualize the trajectory and the history of translation;

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have an idea what the job market is like nowadays,

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identify the best method to translate a text according to each and every situation you face.

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1.1 The History of Translation The development of world culture owes a lot to translation. Its need has always existed and it is hard to imagine it will eventually end. Cultures need to find a  way to communicate with each other, and the bridge for this meeting is firstly built by a translator. translator. In order to be assimilated, assimilated, ideas of one specific culture have constantly moved and gotten assimilated into other cultures through their work. Even though this work may have all sorts of disagreements between theorists, they have never taken its importance for granted.

CONNECTION The History of Translation in a nutshell at http://www.languagerealm.com/articles/ history-of-translation.php Check it out!

The history of translation relates to the history of the so often invisible and rarely felt – but always present – cross-cultural interactions of the world. Since as early as sixth century B.C. – when India and the Mediterranean countries established their trade ties – ideas and concepts from the East, notably India, China and Iraq have influenced the Western culture. Plato’s and Galen’s medical theories ended up strongly influencing those of India. Many of the philosophical and scientific works of ancient Greece were rendered into Arabic as early as ninth century A.D. Spain, which was predominantly a Muslim country then, was positively invaded by this knowledge, which also started spreading to Europe via the school school of translators of Toledo. Toledo. The responsible for such deeds  was Alfonso VI of Castile and Leon. In 1085 AD, he was in charge charge of translations from Arabic to Latin, and then to Spanish. These scientific and technological  works led to the European Renaissance.  Ancient translators have often remained unknown or in the background. Their credit has never been acknowledged in spite of their key contributions to the world we know today. Nowadays, we can admit and realize their almost inhumanly painstaking effort to do them well in a world of conflicts and battles. However, it has not always happened.

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Translators have enabled Holy Scriptures (the Bible being the most important example) written in obscure languages, such as Latin, to be understood by ordinary people by translating them into more common languages. By doing it, those people would not entirely depend on a few elite priests or the members of clergy to explain what they contained. The action of making the scriptures more accessible, hence making people less dependent on the clergy, was some sort of rebellion, and it got to the point of being punished with death. In 1536, William Tyndale was arrested and executed in Holland for translating the Bible from its original languages into the common vernacular of English.    M    O    C  .    E    M    I    T    S

   M    A    E    R    D     |    2    6    Z    N    C    W    A    ©

William Tyndale's Tyndale's 1538 edition of the English New Testament, which showed the English text and Erasmus' Latin text. From the Reed Rare Books Collection in Dunedin, New Zealand.

MULTIMEDIA Do you want to know more about the history of translation? You can check out a video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEAebRESLew

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On the other hand, most translators are held with recognition and honor for their hard work and effort. Xuanzang, a Chinese monk who is said  to   to have translated into Chinese more than 70 volumes of the Buddhist scriptures originating from India in 645 AD. After returning from his travels in the search for more documents to translate and make accessible, he was greeted  with honors for his brilliant work. He refused his honors, and kept doing his translations until his death, in 664 AD.    M    O    C  .    E    M    I    T    S    M    A    E    R    D     |    C    H    H    G    S    F    ©

A statue of Xuanzang, famous Chinese Buddhist. The translating community was proud of the brilliant translations done by the British Constance Garnett. The Russian classics, including those of Turgenev, Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Dostoyevski, came to life in English through her hands in late 19th century. Francis Wrangham published translations from ancient Greek, Latin, French, and Italian that include A include A Few Sonnets Attempted from Petrarch in Early Life  (1817);   (1817); The Lyrics of Horace  (1821)   (1821) among others.  Another more recent acclaimed translator translator is Gladys Yang, who translated many many Chinese classics into English over the last 50 years, and our Machado de Assis,  who has the best and most beautiful b eautiful translation of Poe’s The Raven , according to most literary critics.

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CONNECTION For your appreciation of Machado’s translation, you can use this link: http://www.jornaldepoesia.jor.br/poemachado.html However, if you want to compare more translations – including Fernando Pessoa’s - and check for yourself those equally beautiful works, use the link below: http://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/translatio/article/view/36692/23759

Therefore, one can only realize translators have made important contributions over the centuries in dissemination of ideas and information to a larger audience. They have helped shaping and developing cultures, in a way that has definitely helped unite the world as we know.

1.2 Myths about translation  As much as one can clearly understand the role of translation along the time or the importance of how it is done, there are a few myths that are hard to die. Maybe for being a science with some disagreement – like any other kind of science – and for involving linguistic tasks, translation has always risen some doubts and inferences, wrongly aroused, must we add. Before we dig in it any further, please take some time to check the box below. Do as your heart says, and don’t think too much about each item. Just go ahead and check what first comes to your mind.

CONNECTION For more translation myths, read these articles. The first one focuses on tr anslation within the sale world, but you can easily transfer its information to any other context. The second one shows 5 more myths about translation: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nataly-kelly/ten-common-myths-about-tr_b_3599644.html http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/translation/articles/translation-myths.html

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AGREE

1 2 3 4 5

NEITHER AGREE NOR DISAGREE

DISAGREE

Translation is a science which can be practiced by anybody as long as they have a great deal of lexical knowledge. Translation can only be done by those who have traveled to countries where the source language is spoken. Translation is a gift, and trying to learn techniques on how do it could be a waste of time. The translator must be bilingual or live in a country where the source language is spoken. Translation is all about language and almost nothing about culture.

How many "agree boxes" have you checked? If you have ticked any of them,  you believe that myth. That’s That’s right: right: a myth. Even though though there is an explanation explanation for each myth, they are nothing but that. Let’s go over each one of them, shall we?

1. TRANSLATION IS A SCIENCE WHICH CAN BE PRACTICED BY ANYBODY AS LONG AS THEY HAVE A GREAT DEAL OF LEXICAL KNOWLEDGE. WRONG! Lexical knowledge is crucial for any translator. Nevertheless, it is not and should not be the only thing a translator has to worry about. Lexical knowledge increases with time and practice. Good dictionaries can be found in the physical and virtual market. Context, culture and chunk of words (units of translation, which will later be seen) are the basis for any good translation. We will get to them in the second chapter of this book.

2. TRANSLATION CAN ONLY BE DONE BY THOSE WHO HAVE TRAVELED TO COUNTRIES WHERE THE SOURCE LANGUAGE IS SPOKEN. WRONG! Even though it is highly advisable to have spent at least some time immersed in the cultural world you are translating a language from, many good translators have never done it. In order to translate well and accurately, they have used methods and techniques besides following the concepts of Sociolinguistics.

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3. TRANSLATION IS A GIFT, AND TRYING TO LEARN TECHNIQUES ON HOW DO IT COULD BE A WASTE OF TIME. WRONG! Translation techniques are essential to any given translator, no matter how talented and gifted they may be. Improving techniques and learning new ones are the first steps for a better work.

4. THE TRANSLATOR MUST BE BILINGUAL OR LIVE IN A COUNTRY WHERE THE SOURCE LANGUAGE IS SPOKEN. WRONG! Exactly like in item number 2, it is highly advisable that a translator have lived within the culture they are translating from or into. However, living abroad does not make anyone a natural translator and that should be clear.

5. TRANSLATION IS ALL ABOUT LANGUAGE AND ALMOST NOTHING ABOUT CULTURE. WRONG! If there are several discourses and speeches within a country itself, and they should all be taken into account when establishing communication, why should a translator ignore cultural aspects while doing their job? Translating “cultures” is a great part of a translation. These are just some of the myths that translators have to handle. At times, their job is not appreciated as it should be due to these myths. Nowadays, they also face a very common issue: overuse and overconfidence of technology.  As the number of translating sites has increased and people’s dependence on the internet has likewise grown, they may mistakenly have a text translated  well in their point point view view because because of the simple fact fact that they trust trust internet internet enough enough to believe it. Moreover, what helps them think it is a fine translation is the first

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item of our list of myths: vocabulary is all it takes to translate. It is not and it never will be! A layperson may not know that, though. It is the translator’s duty never to diminish their work and importance since it would help feed these myths. There is no no way to deny, though, that technology also aids translators if  well used. One of the best examples are the programs that make use of corpora (a collection of samples of corpus), which is a valid asset. One of the differences differe nces between a good translator and anybody who tries to do a translation is how they use the resources they have at hand.

1.3 Job market Before we go any further into the job market of translation, it is extremely necessary to analyze what it takes to be a translator. In the first part of this chapter, you came across some definitions of translation and the disagreements some authors have upon it. Defining what a translator needs would not or could not be any different, differe nt, then. Who else, rather than translators themselves, would be better at giving a say about what it takes to do this job?

MULTIMEDIA Listen to a translator give an interview on job market to Rede Globo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEywpzGbFs4

So as to clear some questions, Ivone C. Benedetti and Adail Sobrail have made a compilation of interviews of several renowned Brazilian translators: Conversas com Tradutores  – Balanços e Perspectivas da Tradução . In the preface, Ivone Benedetti claims that, even though it is not said out loud by all the translators, the translation market is covertly divided into two very distinct areas: technical and literary. Still according to her, literary translation is “the kingdom of adjectives,  verbs, metaphors and transgressive transgressive syntactic constructions” constructions” while “a technical translation is everything but that” (p.22). She says this is the foundation for the other subdivision of the market: translation-as-a-means and translationas-an-end. In other words, the translation-as-a-means deals with texts that are

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not seen as the final product, such as a manual or the instructions to assemble a device. They are mere accessories to the final product, which may vary from a medicine to a truck, for example. On the other hand, translation-as-an-end is the final product itself, which depends, if not solely at least mainly, on the translation to be sold. Classic examples are books or the subtitling of a TV show. Take translation out of the equation, and the product will equally disappear. The author shyly affirms this division might be the key factor for a translator’s remuneration. Since the translation-as-a-means may have very little influence on the final price of the final product, charging for it might not be as financially rewarding as charging for a translation-as-an-end. Hence, the opposite happens to the translation-as-an-end: it weighs on the final price of the final product for it is the main, perhaps sole, reason the final product can be sold. Benedetti concludes that both translators – technical and literary – are allowed to work in either sector as long as they have the skills to do it. Nevertheless, she admits they may excel at one, but not at the other. It would be up to them to decide whether they can and should do it. Furthermore, she makes a very strong and valid point saying that what influences the remuneration is not the area they are translating to; it is the division of the translation world into technical and literary.

CONNECTION If you are interested in knowing details of the interviews, it is a good idea to take a look at the publishing site of the book. In it, you find links to all the translators who were asked to give their opinion and see for yourself which areas they belong to, deciding which ones draw your attention the most. Here the link goes: http://parabolaeditorial.com.br/releaseconversast.htm

That being said, let’s move on to what fellow translators from different areas admit being the basic and key-characteristics for someone to become a good translator. Above all, they need to:

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1.

have ethics above all;

2.

face translation as a real job, not a moonlight job;

3.

largely understand the world and be open-minded to try and do it all the time;

4.

be curious;

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5.

always research and know how to do it;

6.

be meticulous and perfectionist;

7.

know how to make decisions;

8.

allow themselves to think outside the box, meaning that they cannot

have a strict and rigid mind under any circumstance; 9.

adequate their work to the client’s or reader’s r eader’s needs and profile,

10.

follow their intuition most of the times.

 Apart from these basic characteristics, most of them point out a translator should take a course on Translation. If they were rare and difficult to find in the past, nowadays, it has become quite simpler to find a good course on Translation.  Anyone who chooses to take this path should be aware that specializing in the area is fundamental to build a career. Translating is a serious job, and as such, so it should be taken. In an e-talk, Francisco Gilberto Labace claims it is essential that the translator make their work worthy of recognition in two meanings: by doing it well and, especially, by not allowing anybody to depreciate it or its doing.  According to him, most people do not know, do not realize or do not want to understand that translating is a job like any other, and it requires study and time, and it should not be taken any less seriously or respectfully.

CONNECTION Read Labace’s full e-talk using this link: http://www.sbs.com.br/e-talks/traducao-e-mercado-de-trabalho/

 As to the remuneration, r emuneration, all of them say it is quite hard to know how much exactly a translator earns. It depends on several factors, and the debate “technical vs. literary” translation comes back to life. Some of them say a translator who takes the job seriously can earn enough to live. Some others say it is impossible to know whether a translator can live solely on their earnings in this job. What most agree on, though, is that a translator earns less than they should, given the nature of their job: they must have a large knowledge knowledge of an area (or areas, for that matter) and it is not always acknowledged by those who hire their services.

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In addition to these kinds of translators, there is another one: the sworn translator. Sworn translators are those who translate for legal equivalence and must take a public contest released by the Board of Trade of a state to acquire this title. They, unlike the other kinds of translators, must follow the price set by the Board of Trade from their state. They charge per translated lauda (around 25 lines, which can also vary from state to state) and are usually hired to perform translations of: birth, marriage, divorce and death certificates;

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 judicial sentences and other documents of legal proceedings, such as

initial petitions, rogatory letters among others; •

proxies;

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agreements;

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company registry documents;

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international transport documents;

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school records and diplomas (or any other education certificate);

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health reports;

•

some specific technical reports,

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any other documents that need to be legally presented and recognized in

Brazil.

CONNECTION Here is link for the table of prices from SINTRA (Sindicato Nacional Nacional dos Tradutores): http:// www.sintra.org.br/site/?p=c&pag=precos

Last, but not least, it is important to say that translators will always be necessary in a world where different dif ferent cultures need to find a way to communicate.  As one could see, necessity and prices vary from state to state, from need to need, from purpose to purpose, and good translators are always busy doing services. The point is: what kind of translator would you like to become?

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1.4 Types and methods of translation  When it comes down to translating, there is more than one type of it. In the beginning of the chapter, when you answered the question about what you think when you hear about “translation”, did you think there would be more than one type? Did you think only about written translation? How about an oral one? In fact, there are only 2 types of translation:

Translation Human

Machine-aided

General or specialized

These 2 types can be divided into subtypes as shown below:

Human

Written Literary

Oral

Non-literary (technical) Sight translation

Consecutive Simultaneous

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MT

Machine-aided

CAT/MAT HAMT

Some of the types are self-explanatory or have been previously discussed, like written, literary, non-literary (technical). However, the others are a bit foggy. Here a brief explanation ex planation goes:

Human  Written: non-literary (technical) translations encompass legal, religious, medical, regulatory, financial, economic documents among other fields and areas, which are not literary by nature. Oral: as the names says, this type of translation is done orally. The simultaneous one is like the one you can watch when the Academy Awards (Oscar) ceremony is on TV: the interpreter waits for a chunk of the speech that makes complete sense and translates it while the speaker keeps on talking. The same process is repeated as many times as necessary. It typically happens in a booth for total and sheer attention is needed.    M    O    C  .    E    M    I    T    S    M    A    E    R    D     |    2    2    2    A    D    G    E    S    V    ©

Translator at work. Sitting in a booth in headphones he adphones with a microphone.

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The difference between simultaneous translation and consecutive translation is that the latter does not require as much attention: the speaker pauses after a few minutes or sentences in order for the interpreter to be able to translate what they said. A typical example is in interviews like the one below:    M    O    C  .    E    M    I    T    S    M    A    E    R    D     |    Y    L    I    M    A    F    O    Z    Z    A    R    A    P    A    P    ©

On April 8, the press center of Donbass Arena hosted the meeting between the fans and the players of Shakhtar Darijo Srna, Douglas Costa and the top scorer in the history of Donetsk -based club Andrei Vorobei.  A sight translation takes place when the interpreter/translator reads aloud a document written in source language straightinto target language. The interpreter must be able to excel at both reading and speaking skills in source and target language. It usually happens at more formal situations, like conferences or collective interviews when the original speaker is not present.

Machine-aided This type of translation is not supposed to be confused with a translation done entirely by a machine. As the name says, the “machine” helps the human translator do their job for a human translation process may be described as the decoding of the meaning of a source text plus its re-encoding in the target

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language. It is a very complex operation, which cannot be performed only by a machine because it depends on the interpretation and analysis of the text, and it can only be successfully done by a human being. After all, it requires deep knowledge of the semantics, syntax, idioms, figures of speech, function of the language and an infinity of other factors from which culture is one of the most important ones. The challenge of programming a computer that will perform all these tasks and understand a text as a human does has not yet been fulfilled. Actually, it might never be. Nonetheless, programs that provide a general approximation of the original text – however imperfect they may be – is at times reasonable enough for situations in which accuracy is not a demand. This process, called “gisting”, is reserved only for cases like this, and it performs a simple substitution of words in a language for words in another, not producing a good translation. That is what is known as MT: machine translation.  The graphic below shows how the program works. Interlingua is the language generated by MT. The process can happen either by a direct translation, usually  word-for-word, or transference, usually chunk-for-chunk.

Interlingua

   s     i    s    y      l    a    n    A

 

Transfer

G     e    n    e    r    a    t     i     o    n   

Direct translation Source text

Target text

Bernard Vauquois' pyramid showing comparative depths of intermediary representation, interlingual machine translation at the peak, followed by transfer-based, then direct translation. Fonte: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_translation#/media/File:Direct_translation_  and_transfer_translation_pyramind.svg

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 As to CAT, it stands for Computer-Assisted Translation while MAT stands for Machine-Assisted Translation. They are the same thing. You may find references to one at times and to the other at other times. Unlike MT, they are a series of programs that help the translator make a better use of their time by supporting and facilitating the translating process. They vary from spell and grammar checkers to translation memory, which is a database of translations in several languages.    A    I    D    E    P    I    K    I    W    ©

Logo for Wordfast, a translation memory database Last, but not least, comes the HAMT. It is the opposite of MT: a human translator modifies the source language text either before, during, or after it is translated by the computer. Human intervention can also mean pre-editing the source language text by someone skilled at using the machine translation system in order to make the source language easier for the computer to understand. Besides, it can mean interactive intervention as well: wel l: the translator may be asked questions about the meaning of the source language text by the computer in order to avoid future mistakes and feed its database. In addition to it, human intervention may also mean post-editing to check the translation and fix mistakes made by the computer. In this case, it is advisable that the “fixer” be a trained linguist so as to fix mostly syntax mistakes and parse them in the system. Regardless if the translation is written or oral, human or machine-aided, general or specialized, one must always bear in mind that a translator’s job is endless. It does not end when they hand their service to the client. It does not end when it reaches its final client: the reader. It does not end when the translator receives feedback. It does not end at the moment they type their final punctuation mark. It does not end even when the translator dies. Once it is done and passed on, it will live forever in whosever mind, lips or eyes it goes

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through. It will live forever, and that is one of the reasons a translator should be very careful and thoughtful about their piece of art; their piece of bridgecrossing; their piece of cultural-access aid.

MULTIMEDIA Listen to Professor Jeremy Munday give his opinion on a translator’s job. It encompasses everything we have seen and thought about so far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iffkVwa9lno

ACTIVITIES What do you think about refreshing your memory and checking if you really got the idea of the chapter? You will find 5 exercises to help you decide which topics you should review, if any. Do them with attention, trying not to go back to the chapter. 01. Read the statements below and and decide whether they are true (T) or false false (F): a)

Translation is a process which has to be done both by a human and a machine. ( )

b) Translation is a process which consists of taking into account not only language itself, but also the culture which it comes from. ( ) c)

Translation should be considered a science for it may not be only a natural gift, but a complex series of theories that must be studied and put into practice. ( )

d) Excelling at a language is the only necessary characteristic a translator should have. ( ) e) For a translation to be considered good, a sworn translator or a literary one should do it. ( ) f)

The translation market is clearly and legally divided into two kinds: literary and technical. (

)

g) Translators don’t earn earn a lot of money because because sites can do a translation as well they they can. can. ( ) h) There are two types of translation (human and machine-aided) and their subdivision. ( ) i)

One can can say translation has been helping the world to be the world we know know and live in. ( )

 j)

Translation is fundamental to the spreading and understanding of cultures. ( )

02. What does translating consist of?

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03. What are the characteristics a translator should have? Tick them. What else would complete the list with? 

Open-minded

 Strict

 A

good traveler

 Ready 

to research

Curious

 Meticulous  Ethical  Humble

 Stuck  Able

a)

to take a contest

04. Match the definitions to the correct item:

A kind of human and oral translation that requires total attention and great listening fluency.

b) A kind of translation that needs a human, preferably a trained linguist, to verify and and fix mistakes in order to prevent them in the future. c)

A kind of translation that belongs to the world of adjectives and figures of speech.

d) A kind of translation that is done orally after a (native) speaker pauses to give the translator some time to translate what has been said. e) A kind of translation which aids a human making their time more valuable. f)

A kind of translation that belongs to a more specific area and that is not literary.

(

) Literary translation

(

) Technical translation

(

) Simultaneous translation

(

) Consecutive translation

(

) HAMT (human-aided machine translation)

(

) CAT CAT (computer-aided translation)

05. You will read three situations now. Identify which type of translation is more suitable suitable to each one of them. Say whether they should be oral or written, human or machine-aided and decide on the best subdivision for them: a)

You are at a conference in which which the speaker speaker can’t pause every five minutes and and the audience need to follow what is being said.

b) You need to reinstall your car car CD player player and you have the manual at hand. You don’t understand how to do it properly, but you have a general idea of what to do.

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c)

You are going to be the publisher of a Chinese book which has a great potential to reach your internal market in Brazil.

06. There is a technique that helps activate our memory. It consists of timing ourselves to make a list of whatever we can remember about something. After some practice, the usual time for a chapter is 30 seconds. Since it is your first time doing it in this book, use 1 minute – not more than that – to make a list of the most important topics of this chapter. Make sure to write only topics. The order of importance does not really matter in this exercise. Are you ready? Time yourself, then, and in 3,2,1… Write it!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT We have started to discuss a little about translation, its history, some of the myths that surround it and some types of translation. Since translation is a science – or an art, as many would call it – we must bear in mind there will always be disagreements and differences in information. A translator should never be narrow-minded for their work depends on the way they see the world. The more open they are, the more chances of doing a better job they have, and that is essential for their reputation. A translator’s reputation is responsible for most of the clients they have, which allows them to have their work recognized and better paid. Regardless of what you choose to translate, it does not mean that you should restrict yourself to that area: you can, if you like, specialize in your area of expertise or you can try more areas as long as the quality of your work never decreases. In our present world, finding a job as a translator should not be that hard because cultures need to be and spread, as they have been, especially with the use of new technologies. This is one more reason to do an excellent job whenever you are asked for one: your name, and your reputation along with it, may be all over the world, and it requires some bad courage to let it in a negative way. A good work may not be recognized or acknowledged immediately, but it eventually will. Think about it!

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RECOMMENDED READING BENEDETTI, Ivone C.; SOBRAL, Adail (orgs).  Conversas com tradutores: balanços e perspectivas da traduação. São Paulo: Parábola Editorial, 2003. MILTON, John. Tradução: teoria e prática. São Paulo: Martins Fontes. 2010. p. 11 – 39. (last access: July 02, 2015) promissor-para-os-proximos-anos-3579711. html> (last access: July 05, 2015)

REFERENCES BENEDETTI, Ivone C.; SOBRAL, Adail (orgs). Conversas com tradutores: balanços e perspectivas da tradução. São Paulo: Parábola Editorial, 2003. LARSON, Mildred. A guide to cross-language equivalence. USA: University Press of America, 1997. MILTON, MILTON, John. Tradução: teoria e prática. São Paulo: Martins Fontes. 2010. p. 11 – 39. NIDA, Eugene A.; TABER, Charles R.. The theory and practice of translation. Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishing, 2003. OTTONI, Paulo (org). Tradução: a prática das diferenças. Campinas: Editora Editora da Unicamp, 2005. (last access: June 16, 2015) (last access: June 20, 2015) (last access: June 16, 2015) (last access: June 21, 2015)

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2 Transla ranslation tion and the Branches of Linguistics

Translation and Linguistics have a very intimate relationship. We could metaphorically call their relationship a fine marriage between two people who  were meant to be with each other since birth and have always known all about it. After all, Linguistics plays an important role in the translation from one language to another. Translating is much more than just changing a word from the original document to another document in a second language. It involves decoding, deciphering, re-encoding. It involves the keeping of the facets and the functions of a language in another language. That is the role of Linguistics in Translation: bringing it to life.

What is Linguistics? What are its branches?

For you to grasp it more clearly, you need to know the definition of Linguistics and the branches of Linguistics we will use in this book: Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics. Linguists are basically split into two categories: the ones that work with language structure and the ones that work with language use. Psycholinguists and sociolinguists belong to the latter.  As we know, each human language is a complex of knowledge and abilities that enables the speaker of that language to communicate with each other, by expressing themselves through ideas, feelings, desires, hypothesis, doubts, emotions and whatever else that needs expressing. Linguistics is the study of these knowledge systems in all their aspects: its structure, its acquisition, its use to produce and comprehend messages and how it has changed over time. Linguistics, hence, is the field that deals with the formal properties of a language: morphology (word structure), syntax (sentence structure), phonetics (speech sounds), phonology (rules and patterns between speech sounds), semantics (meaning in language) and pragmatics (use of language). While Psycholinguistics encompasses the several aspects of Linguistics, including language acquisition, acquisition, Sociolinguistics

studies the effects society has in

language. They are all linked somehow. These are only some of the several definitions for you to have a general idea of what this chapter is going to be about. We will see the pertinent details of each of these fields and areas and relate them to Translation T ranslation and the methods of translation. There is a graphic below for you to start visualizing the importance of this connection better:

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Linguistics What do people say?

Psycholinguistics How do people learn a language? How do they understand it? How do they produce it?

Sociolinguistics Translation

Who speaks? What about? To whom? When? Where? Why?

It is, again, crucial that you not close yourself against new ideas and discussions, and it will become imperative that you be flexible enough in order to change your mind once in a while about something which may be ingrained in you. This chapter means well. Bear that in mind and try to practice some of the characteristics a translator must have (the ones you read about in chapter 1).

GOALS TO BE REACHED By the end of this chapter, you should be able to: define each of the three branches of Linguistics; understand and visualize the methods of translation within the branches of Linguistics, identify the translatable chunks of a text.

•

•

•

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2.1 Linguistics and Translation Kolawole says in his paper Interdisciplinarity in Language , Linguistics and Translation that

The relevance of Linguistics in the field of Translation is obvious. It is also a truism that translation cannot be without language and that one cannot translate without knowing about the source language and the target language. In the world today, translation studies have been enjoying unprecedented success because it has become a fertile and frequent metaphor for the contemporary intercultural world. (…) It is also relevant to understand that to ‘know’ a language is not the same as to ‘know about’ a language. This means that being able to speak a language fluently is no guarantee that one is able to explain and present that language to others in another language. The knowledge of Linguistics is therefore a sure way of improving the quality of translation. (2013, p.7)

 As it has been said before, Linguistics is not the study of languages: l anguages: it is the scientific study of a language. One can find three aspects to this study (form, meaning and context) and five levels of a language, as the picture shows. Levels of language

Morphology Phonetics, Phonology

Syntax

Forms and words

All sounds, system sounds

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Semantics

Pragmatics

Meanings of various kinds

Clauses and sentences

Language use

 As language is such a central feature of a human being, Linguistics has intellectual connections with many other social and natural sciences and practical consequences and uses in them, like Philosophy, Literature, Biology, Computer Science, Psychology not to mention more.  .    A    I    D    E    P    I    K    I    W

Linguistics has come a long way since its first use, in the 4th century BC. Ferdinand de

   ©

Saussure is its most prominent and important representative. According to him (2006), all languages have a relational concept of their elements, and the words and their meaning must be defined by comparing and contrasting them to one another. He also claimed that the linguistic elements are defined by their function rather than their inherent features. What is really real ly curious about his ideas, though, is the social nature he defines language: the context language

The Swiss linguist Ferdinand is applied determines the analysis, determination determ ination de Saussure (1857–1913) and realizations of its structure.

MULTIMEDIA Watch this fantastic 5-minute video about Saussure and Linguistics. It is enlightening and really worth your time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5vhq3aRNjE

He is the one that came up with the concepts of langue  and   and  parole  in   in the early 20th century that have been used until now. While langue is pre-existent and independent, being the abstract phenomenon that defines the principles and system by which a language is commanded, parole is the speech itself  within that language; it is individual and refers to the concrete c oncrete instances of the use of a language. According to Saussure, the structure of langue is defined and revealed through the study of parole . This theory resonates in linguist Noam Chomsky’s definition of competence and performance. After Saussure, Noam Chomsky is a great name to this field and has brought to it some enlightening and implements to what may have been obscure to some. For that matter, he is considered by many “the father of modern Linguistics”. capítulo 2 •

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Chomky’s definition of competence is the knowledge someone has of any given language, and performance is the use the person pe rson makes of such knowledge – Saussure’s langue and parole. He proposed that all languages share share common underlying principles that vary in systematic ways from a language to another. He claims the human brain is aware of these underlying principles, and that learning a language means learning how that language implements the underlying principles of all languages.    A    I    D    E    P    I    K    I    W    ©

Chomsky at the World Social Forum (Porto Alegre) in 2003

AUTHOR Learn a lot more about Chomsky at http://www.chomsky.info/  ©

 Another

great

studious

of

W I   K  I   M E  D  I   A 

Linguistics

that needs to be mentioned and taken into consideration is Roman Jakobson.

Jakobson

does not make use of isolated information to convey meaning. Rather than that, he uses culturally interconnected signs to reconstruct systems of relationships. The six functions of the language, explained and shown below, is a theory created by him.

The Russian linguist Roman Jakobson (1896 – 1982)

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AUTHOR Learn more about Jakobson at: http://www.signosemio.com/jakobson/index-en.asp

Context (referential)

Situation

Message (poetic)

Addresser (emotive)

Addressee (conative) Contact (phatic) Code (metalingual)

That is how the theory works: the speaker/ author (addresser) sends a verbal act (message) to the listener/ reader (addressee) through an either partially or fully shared language (code). In order to get across the receiver of the message, it needs a referent (context) and a physical or psychological channel (contact). All this takes place within a situation, which has to be shared by both the addresser and the addressee. He claims that each of these six factors determines a different function of the language, and one of them is always the dominant factor, hence determining what kind of text you will come across. Briefly put, the factors and functions can be thus related: •

Referential function is oriented towards the context.

•

Emotive function is oriented towards the addresser addr esser (expressive).

•

Conative function is oriented towards the addressee a ddressee (action-inducing).

•

Metalingual function is oriented towards the code (language speaking

about the language). •

Poetic function is oriented towards the message (for its own sake).

•

Phatic function is oriented towards the openness of the channel

of communication.

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 As you can see, Linguistics is a science that studies not only the semantic, syntactic and stylistic differences between languages, but also the relations between language and culture. One could go as far as to say it is also related to context and situations. These particular knowledge and acknowledgement certainly help a translator to understand the issued involved in (trying to) expressing equivalent meanings in two different languages. In other words, to translate accurately from a language to another, the translator must address all the functions of linguistics: the grammar being used, the meaning of the words as individual components, phrase/ sentences created by the speaker/ writer, the context and situations whose phrases/ sentences are placed in and so forth.  An accurate translation determines where the similarities similarities and differences of a language lie because each language has underlying commonalities regardless of the way they differ in its linguistic functions. Relying on only one area of the language will certainly not produce a good translation since this translation may lack all the other vital pieces of information the other functions provide the discourse with. In his essay   On a Linguistics Aspects of Translation   (1959), Jakobson mentions and defines three kinds of translation:

 interpretation of verbal signs by means of other verbal signs of the same language. In other words, it refers to the definition of a word or a synonym to it. E.g.: cheese monger: someone who sells cheese or any other dairy product.

1.INTRALINGUAL (REWORDING)

   M    O    C  .    E    M    I    T    S    M    A    E    R    D     |    S    N    A    D    X    E    L    A    ©

Another example of intralingual translation

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2. INTERLINGUAL (TRANSLATION PROPER) 3.INTERSEMIOTIC (TRANSMUTATION)

an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language. In other words, translation itself. E.g.: student aluno

an interpretation of verbal signs by means signs of nonverbal sign system. In other words, the change of a written text into another form, such as art or dance.

Even though all of these translations are valid and important by all means, our major interest is the interlingual translation. For Jakobson, meaning and equivalence are linked to this kind of translation because it involves two equivalent messages in two different codes. He uses as basis Saussure’s theory of signifier (name) and signified (object or concept) and how the equivalence can be transferred between two different languages. Also, he expands Saussure’s ideas by adding to the semantics field the concept of grammatical and lexical differences.

MULTIMÍDIA Watch this 2-minute video about a brief explanation on Psycholinguistics to have a general view of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qWVkJPsykU

 Along the chapter, you will be able to study some theories on Translation and determine whether or not they can and should be applied. Something you might want to bear in mind is that translation is only possible when you think of differences and similarities between two (or more) languages, which only exist if in a context or situation. Translating a language without considering  whatever surrounds it means doing an incomplete job, like Saussure, Chomsky and Jakobson all said using different words.

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2.2 Psycholinguistics and Translation Psycholinguistics is the branch of Linguistics responsible for studying the cognitive processes that make language possible. It studies the operations that lead the generation of meaningful sentences containing grammatical and lexical structures. Just like Linguistics, it is an interdisciplinary field by nature and is studied by people in a variety of areas, such as Psychology, Cognitive Science and Linguistics itself. Psycholinguistics specifically explores the cognitive processes that underlie the acquisition, storage and use of language concerning about affective and contextual factors only if they cause an impact upon language. Its main goal is to identify patterns of behavior across users even though there certainly is a  variable range of individual linguistic repertoire. Unlike Linguistics, Psycholinguistics has a recent history. It became a subject on its own only in the 60s even though it is traced back to studies conducted by Wilhelm Wundt in his laboratory in 1879.    A    I    D    E    P    I    K    I    W    ©

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) Psycholinguistics can be divided into three different fields: language processing, language storage and language acquisition. This book does not aim at unraveling every detail of these fields. It does, however, intend to expose these fields in general lines to make the process of associating Psycholinguistics to Translation easier:

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1.

Language processing refers to the identification of the processes that

underlie writing and speaking – considered productive skills – and listening and reading – considered receptive skills. These skills often happen automatically, and accounts of language reception r eception recognize two phases/stages for them to take place: decoding and interpreting. Decoding involves both lexical and grammatical structures within a context to give meaning to the speech/discourse. In early studies, external cues, such as world knowledge, used to be the most important factor to that. Nowadays, however, it has been proven that a skilled performance depends on an efficient decoding to give attention to a higher-level meaning. The construction of meaning relies on the process of interpretation as well, demanding the reader/listener to expand the literal significance of what is being said by adding what they left unsaid. Besides, the user has to decide whether the new information is important or not, whether it adds to the meaning created so far by checking its consistency. 2.

Language storage refers to how sounds and grammar are represen-

ted and stored in the user’s mind. Conventionally, sounds are stored as templates that can be matched against variations while grammar takes the form of internalized, yet abstract, rules. This might be a field of enormous interest in Psycholinguistics, and technology has been helping it in the past years. Psycholinguistics have shown and proven that the ability to recognize sounds and grammar derives from the millions of examples the user is exposed to throughout their life rather than a generalization made to retain language rules. Therefore, exposure is the key factor to store language rules and sounds. 3.

Language acquisition refers to the long-running debate as to whether

language is innate or acquired. A nativist view sees language as something genetically transmitted while an empiricist view sees is wholly or mainly acquired through exposure to the language adult caregivers use to talk to the child. Many M any child language researchers have opted on choosing a neutral point of view rather than debating innate vs. acquired theories. This area can be basically divided into two traditions (categories). One is theory-driven and believes, like Chomsky, grammar is a mental process. The second one, data-driven, is still inconclusive concerning how the relationship

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between hearing and producing spoken words really works for children just like the construction of conceptual categories from discrete examples from the  very same category.

CONNECTION If you are interested in knowing a little more about Psycholinguistics, you can access https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycholinguistics

There is a third area on language acquisition that concerns the learning and mastering of a foreign language. Psycholinguistics theory studies both the cognitive processes that lead to the excelling at a target language (L2) and the additional cognitive demands this learning requires: unfamiliar phonology, lexis and syntax. The concepts of attention, working memory and automaticity are useful when it comes to that, and the way speech is assembled in source language (L1) helps psycholinguists understand how fluency is created in target language (L2).  As one can realize, Psycholinguistics deals with the way language is acquired, produced and stored, becoming of great importance to the study and development of translation methods, which will be seen further in this chapter. By discovering how our mind works when using and producing language, we  will also be able to improve our techniques when handling a second language. Thus, even if it is not that visible, Psycholinguistics is a great asset to the study of Translation as a science. Furthermore, one can affirm a translator receives the text in a similar way to which an ordinary receiver would. The difference, though, is that their role is to recreate the text in a high level of stability of meaning, recreating the largest possible part of the cognitive base of the addresser. How else would a translator do it if not by accessing the three fields of Psycholinguistics even if they are not fully aware of that? Psycholinguistics didn’t use to have its value recognized until some decades ago, but studies and practice have proven how fortunate the translator that studies it is.

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2.3 Sociolinguistics and Translation Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of all the aspects society has upon language, including cultural norms and context. It is about the relationship between language and society. It can help us understand why we speak differently in various social contexts. Actually, it shares elements with Pragmatics, a field of Linguistics that studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics also studies how language varies regarding some variables (age, ethnicity, status, gender, social group, religion to mention just a few) and how individuals create and adhere to the rules used accordingly.    M    O    C  .    E    M    I    T    S    M    A    E    R    D     |    S    E    G    A    M    I    L    E    X    I    P    W    A    R    ©

A representation of how Sociolinguistics and Translation work. Sociolinguistics may be confused at times with Sociology of Language,  which focuses on issues brought by language in society, such as how social groups can be better understood through language or the attitudes behind the use and distribution of speech forms in society.

MULTIMEDIA Do you want to know why sociolinguistics is so important? Check it out at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=-2uIWabYJYA

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For sociolinguists, there is more to the process of acquiring a language than the cognitive process itself. Apart from the activation of a predisposition in the brain, there is a social process as well, and the focus of this process lies in the understanding of the use of language within a society and a nd the several situations and contexts it will certainly be applied to. This implies possible relationships between linguistic items and concepts, varying from the ones cited above to power and solidarity. Sociolinguists are the ones who determine if a word is appropriate a ppropriate or not for a situation by studying and analyzing social attitudes and contexts. They also study phonetics, grammar and any other aspect that might have any effect upon language variation, which determines language in its contextual environment, being concerned with social constraints. The use of different varieties of language in different social situations is called code-switching, as it will be further explained in Chapter 5. The two pioneers who brought Sociolinguistics into the West cultures were  William Labov and Basil Bernstein. Be rnstein. While Labov is regarded as the founder of Socioliguistics in the West with his Variationist theory, Bernstein is the creator of the elaborated code and restricted code theories, which will be defined later in this chapter. Equally important, especially to Translation, are William Stewart and Heinz Kloss, who studied how standard language varieties differ from nation to nation. Some concepts are fundamental in Sociolinguistics, and whichever field or branch from Sociolinguistics depend on them:

SPEECH COMMUNITY

44

there is some debate on its definition, but most sociolinguists agree that it is a group of people who share similar ideas, uses and norms of a language, being (almost) completely homogeneous.

PRESTIGE

when compared to another language or dialect, it is the level of respect accorded to a language. It can be high (positive) or low (negative).

SOCIAL NETWORK

the structure of a speech community, which could be tight or loose, and may vary depending on the kind of connections each individual has.

•

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LANGUAGE VARIETY DIALECT

the difference speakers have when using language in any given context, triggered by social factors.

a language variety spoken by an entire speech community.

STANDARD LANGUAGE

a language variety spoken by a group of people in their public discourse. In some cultures, the higher the prestige, the more sophisticated language is regarded.

INTERNAL VS. EXTERNAL LANGUAGE

while internal language refers to the abstract concept of language (similar to langue), external language is the use of language in a social context (similar to parole).

 Apart from these seven fundamental concepts, one must know there are macro and micro approaches to fully understand how Sociolinguistics works. Even though they will not be studied in this book, here they are for your knowledge: •

•

Interactional Sociolinguistics  Variationist Sociolinguistics

•

Historical Sociolinguistics

•

Dialectology

•

Discourse Analysis

•

Conversation Analysis

•

Language planning and policy 

Last, but not least, comes Bernstein’s theory on restricted code c ode vs. elaborated code. Contrary to what it may sound, the restricted code does not lack quality in  vocabulary or whatsoever. It just refers to the kind of discourse used when there is a shared understanding of a situation or common knowledge amongst those involved in that audience. It is commonly used in groups of friends or family. On the other hand, the elaborated code is used when not everybody shares the same knowledge of the circumstances, and it is necessary that the audience understand what is being said. capítulo 2 •

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 When Sociolinguistics and Translation are finally united, all the aspects, elements and theories from both fit perfectly, and the process becomes much clearer. As it has been said before, the translator translator intends to recreate the largest possible part of the cognitive base of the sender. In order to do this, translators have to: 1.

base themselves on the knowledge of other texts and the culture of the

target language. In order to do it, they have to know facts and various var ious communicative strategies; 2.

estimate the receiver’s capability of understanding the text;

3.

compare and contrast the position of the source text in the language of

target final text; 4.

imagine future readers, so they can imagine the text in their market and

 visualize its accuracy, 5.

go back to comparing and contrasting both texts within their target

context in mind. In general lines, a translator should worry about the transition and transmission of the topics that are seen below:

Original work  · Creation of meaging · Target audience · Purpose

Translated work  · Creation of meaging in the target language · Identification of a target audience · Restoration of the impact, the purpose and the meaning

· Culture · Background culture vs. own culture

This process is the creation of a model of translation that can be used at different stages of the translation process. It is needless to say it is not a linear process, and it can vary depending on the number of variables that specific translation process might have.  A sociolinguistic In her article Translator’s faithfulness in the 21st century:  A view  (2007),  (2007), Janis Silis claims that

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Translation and interpreting is increasingly capturing the attention of sociolinguists, for not only linguists, but also representatives of other disciplines more and more often view the process of translation as a communicative act in a specific situational context. The problem becomes especially topical when the target language text readers are perceived as definite social, professional or culture specific groups: here the concrete parameters of the addressee will undoubtedly pattern the perception of the translated or interpreted version. Being aware of the problem’s importance a professional interpreter and translator will strive to keep optimal functional adequacy of the source language (SL) and target language (TL) texts, simultaneously doing the utmost to modify the target text according to the specific character of the readers’ circle.

In sum, Silis says that translation has not only become a Sociolinguistics issue, but has started being seen as such for it is impossible and incorrect to deny that culture and context do not have any influence in the reading and  writing of a text. If I f there is such influence in the writing and reading process, there should also be it in the translation process, which can be seen as the rewriting and recreation of the former process. Somehow, it would not wander far from reality and it would be even irresponsible to say a translation can be done without taking Sociolinguistics very seriously.

2.4 The 3Cs of Translation Translation and units of translation Gathering what Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics have in common and how they must be used in the translation process, one can conclude that the whole process can be summed up in 3 Cs:

C

ulture

ontext

Translation

hunk of words

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  First and foremost, culture – the biggest factor to be considered – encompasses all the other elements of a text, as it has been said. It is crucial that translators not ignore it in order to fully grasp the primary, the source text and turn it into another text, another creation that, eventually, needs to get the same message across. Secondly, translators cannot forget the context that was used in the text. By context, we mean the elements on which the text was based: situation, language, language function, target group, age, among others. Finally, we come to chunk of words. Chunk of words refers to the “group” of  words that can be united so as to make enough sense to be translated accurately  within context c ontext and culture. It may vary from only one word to a full sentence, and the translator can divide it as well as it suits them and their work as long as they do not change the meaning of the whole chunk. The “big picture” goes beyond what each element alone can provide.

MULTIMEDIA You can check out the th e whole lyrics of the song at http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/meghantrainor/allaboutthatbass.html or at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAlz5TiKOCM

 A very good example that one cannot ignore the 3 Cs of translation is the song All about that bass  by  by Meghan Trainor. It may be just a fad, which may or may not have passed by the time you are reading this sentence, but it explicitly shows how each C plays its role not only in the translation, but especially in the understanding of the the lyrics. Let’s analyze a part of it, shall we? First of all, we need to know what bass and treble are. By using Jakobson’s intralingual system, we can reword, hence translate, bass by giving it two, among of a lot definitions: a low pitch or a musical instrument of low pitch.  Also, we can use his intersemiotic system and transmutate it into a nonverbal sign system and use a picture to describe one of these definitions:

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   M    O    C  .    E    M    I    T    S    M    A    E    R    D     |    R    E    G    R    E    B    I    D    N    A

   ©

A bass guitar Treble, on the other hand, hand, is the opposite: opposite: a high-pitched voice, tone or sound or an instrument with high-pitched sound. Again, using Jakobson’s intersemiotic system, here is an image to transmutate it:    M    O    C  .    E    M    I    T    S    M    A    E    R    D     |    E    U    Q    U    T    A    B    ©

A clarinet Now, one might think everybody is ready to translate the part “I'm all about that bass/ 'Bout that bass, no treble”. However, that is not quite right. Some more elements must be taken into account. For instance: what is the function of the language in this case? ca se? What is its context? What is the message that needs to come across the reader/ listener? Considering it is the lyrics of a song, the context may be rather symbolic. Hence, the poetic function is the prominent one, making the message its primal interest. The context would be, then, not denotative, and the words

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 would acquire a new meaning; one that is not necessarily what definitions and images prove it to be.

MULTIMEDIA You can check out the whole translation of the song here: com/watch?v=TzPGvjx1wMk

https://www.youtube.

For someone to translate accurately what she meant by the sentence, they are supposed to analyze the entire lyrics, and even consider analyzing the outside context of the lyrics, that is, the situation – what Sociolinguistics would call external interactions with the language. Meghan Trainor and Kevin Kadish use the musical instruments as a figure of speech to describe the relationship someone has with their body image. As she says she “is all about that bass”, she means she is glad about the curves her female and chubby body has; she would not exchange it for a thin – treble – body. That conclusion does not come easily, though. All the aspects of the lyrics should be analyzed just like all the aspects and elements of any given text should. Could one say she prefers bass instruments to treble ones? The answer is negative if you analyze the whole lyrics. Nevertheless, if isolated, the sentence “I’m all about that bass, no treble” could be interpreted as such. Therefore, acknowledging the observations above, one cannot say under any circumstance a translation is complete if the whole text is regarded equally important in the process. The context and the culture also influence its understanding and translation. In Brazil, for instance, the musical instrument that represents a curved female body is an acoustic guitar rather than a bass guitar. The translation should, then, follow our culture instead of theirs. After all, the target audience – Brazilian people – would connect more easily and smoothly with the intention of the author of the source text. Two of the three Cs are clear. As to the third one, the chunk of words, one needs to define units of translation tra nslation first. When you think of a unit of translation, this is what you should bear in mind, as seen in Alves, Magalhães and Pagano (2000): it is a segment of a text the translator sees and treats as a s a single cognitive unit so as to establish an equivalence. It is the starting point for any translation,

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and it changes and varies according to the translator’s needs. The UT may be a single word, a phrase, one or more sentences or even a larger unit. The larger the unit, the better chances for a more accurate translation there is. In the fifth chapter of the brilliant book of Alves, Magalhães and Pagano’s  (2000), there is a text which they extracted from Brown B rown Traduzir com autonomia  (2000), and Yule’s Discourse analysis (1979) and that perfectly illustrates how a chunk of word can be analyzed and translated. For didactical purposes, the text will be reproduced here without a title:

Rocky got up from the mat, planning his escape. He hesitated a moment anda thought. Things were not going well. What bothered him most was being held, especially since the chare against him had been weak. He considered his present situation. The lock that held him was strong, but he thought could break it

Before you think of a possible translation, mentally answer the following questions: 1.

Is Rocky alone?

2.

 Where is he?

3.

 What happened to him?

Bearing your answers in mind, answer them twice again. These times, though, there will be a title that must be incorporated in the text and in your answers. TEXT 1

A wrestler in a tighr corner

Rocky got up from the mat, planning his scape. He hesitated a moment and thought. Things were not going well. What bothered him most was being held, especially since the charge against him had been weak. He considered his present situation. The lock that held him was strong, but he trought he could break it.

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Your answer may have been the same because you must have thought of Sylvester Stallone as Rocky, and one of the images you may have in your mind is probably one of Rocky Balboa fighting in a boxing ring. What helped you picture the text, hence understand it, is the knowledge you have built along the years.

QUESTION Which words would you use to translate “lock”? Think about it!

Here comes the same text with a different title now. Answer the questions again: TEXT 2

A prisoner plans his escape

Rocky got up the mat, planning his escape. He hesitated a moment and thought. Things were not going well. What bothered him most was being held, especially since the charge against him had been weak. He considered his present situation. The lock that held was strong, but the thought he could break it.

The answers you have come up with are different from the ones from the same text above. What changes then? What makes you think differently? Isn’t the text the same? Technically, the answer is no. A text starts before the first paragraph. para graph. It starts  with the previous knowledge you y ou have about any given subject. That is why you may have connected Rocky to the movie and sports context. The second one, though, brings a different scenario: the title makes you change the picture you had created, and it reorganizes the idea and thoughts you had so clearly made. Based on what has just happened, it can be said that what changed was the first unit of translation in each text: the title. By changing it, the whole text changed as well, and the translation followed the units of translation that occurred in it along with the context.  As the picture below shows, the units of translation do not have to be different for the text to be different, too. A translator can divide a text in as many units as they find suitable and necessary. What certainly and definitely needs

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to happen is to divide them in a way they make sense as the translation is in progress. For instance, if “the charge” had been divided as a UT, it could not have, under any circumstance, been translated as “a acusação” in both of them. The translator would need to have have common sense to translate it as “o golpe” in A wrestler in a tight corner. The same happens to the last UT (but he thought he could break it): in the first text, it could be translated as “mas ele pensou que pudesse se livrar”, and, in the second one, “mas ele pensou que pudesse quebrá-lo”.

A wrestler in a tighr corner

A prisoner plans his escape

Rocky got up from the mat | planning his escape | He hesitated a moment | and thought | Things were not going well. | What bothered him most | was being held, | especially since the charge against him | had been weak. | He considered his present situation. | The lock that held him was strong | but the thought he could break it.  Units of translation tr anslation (UTs) (UTs) in the text te xt Thinking carefully about it, any UT requires special attention to the way it is translated since it is not the only element to be analyzed. The UT is the last of the 3 Cs of translations: chunk of words. It may be the last, but it is not the least le ast important. When it comes down to translation, every ever y little thing does matter.  Another classic example of how the 3Cs work is a certificate of marriage:    M    O    C  .    E    M    I    T    S    M    A    E    R    D     |    Y    K    S    V    A    L    S    T    A    R    B    A    I    L    A    T    A    N    ©

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The first part of the marriage certificate says “This is to certify that…”, which, at a first glance and thought, some would translate as “Isto é para certificar que…”. If Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics are all applied in this very piece of sentence, a much better translation will be possible. Since it must be translated into Portuguese, in Brazil, from a context and culture we know, this chunk of words would more appropriately and accurately translated as “Certifico que…”. Therefore, one should never neglect details when it comes to translation. Every little thing matters, and one should use knowledge and time to our advantage. A simple formula that may help the process of translation to become more fluid is by starting from the text reflexively. Since the automatic system our mind projects will naturally come first, it will require some practice to think reflexively. Next, use the UT along with the 3Cs. The translator will have an unfinished version after these parts of the process and will certainly have to polish it until the final version is ready. A useful piece of advice is to allow the translation and your mind to rest from each other for some time. It will provide the necessary elements to revisit what is done, and to be more critically aware of possible inaccurate translations. The image below shows how the process  works: Automatic block

TEXT

Starting point

UT

Reflexive block

Temporary version

Polishing

Final version

Tip: let the final version of your translation deep for a double of days before you go over it again.

This is the first step to start a translation, and it can be improved by the several methods of translation there are. You will see some of the most common methods now.

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2.5 Methods of Translation Peter Newmark is one of the main founders of Translation Studies in the English-speaking world, and he proposes that there be eight methods of translation in his The textbook of translation (1988). Even though he may have created some polemic with his affirmations, they are wide worldly used, and he is the source most translators trust. He classifies texts in three categories: scientific-technological, institutional-cultural and literary texts. Based on these categories, he created the eight methods briefly described below:

1. WORD-FOR-WORD

it is a method that does not make use of context or whatsoever. Actually, the name is self-explanatory, and it is a lexical-based method.

2. LITERAL TRANSLATION

alike the first method presented, it lacks context analysis. However, it is grammar-based rather than lexical-based.

3. FAITHFUL TRANSLATION

unlike the methods above, it respects the context within it. It respects grammar although it is not its primary goal.

4. SEMANTIC TRANSLATION

it is, again, context-based, and highly regards the semantic value of the source language.

5. ADAPTATION

it is also context-based, and its primary objective is to convert the culture embedded in source language into the culture of target language.

6. FREE TRANSLATION

the target language is the primary focus, and it is ideabased. The idea must get across the reader even if there are considerable changes in semantics.

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7. IDIOMATIC TRANSLATION 8. COMMUNICATIVE TRANSLATION

since it is message-based, there may be losses of nuances of meaning, distorting them but not the message itself. accuracy-and-balance based, it tries to keep a balance b alance between context and language. Probably, one of the most used methods in literary translations.

For Newmark (1988), “only semantic and communicative translation fulfill the two main aims of translation, which are first accuracy, and, second, economy” (p.41). Also, he claims that translation theory should be concerned about how to determine appropriate translation methods for the widest possible range of texts or text-categories. That is exactly what he did: he provided a framework of principles for translating texts according to the needs of translators based on the texts they have.

ACTIVITIES 01. Are the sentences below about Translation, Linguistics, Psycholinguistics or Sociolinguistics? a) The area that studies the relationship between language language and society. b) The area that studies how a source language can be turned into a target language. c) The area area that studies how language is created and and produced in our brain d) The area that studies a language scientifically. 02. Tick what is correct. Consider L for Linguistics; P, P, for Psycholinguistics; S, for Sociolinguistics; T, for Translation: L Newmark brings 8 methods to do it accordingly to the needs of the professional. professional. However, he is not the only theorist to propose methods. methods. Language processing, storage and acquisition are its fundamental branches of study. It requires methods and common sense to be of high quality. The six functions of the language are studied by this. It is responsible for studying the cognitive processes that make language possible

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P

S

T

L

P

S

T

By analyzing the discourse, context and culture along with other elements, it helps translators find the right means to do their job accurately. According to Jakobson, there are three types of it: intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic. Saussure and Chomsky are great representatives representatives of this field.

03. In your own words or chart, describe how the process of translation can happen. happen. 04. Peter Newmark created 8 methods to translate translate texts that vary according according to the needs of the translator and the nature of the text. Go back in the chapter if necessary and complete the chart below about some of them: IDEA-BASED GRAMMAR-BASED CONTEXT-BASED BALANCED MESSAGE-BASED

05. What is a unit of translation (UT) and how does it work? 06. What are the 3Cs of translation and how do they work? 07. Let’s try something more challenging, challenging, shall we? Read this extract from a magazine. magazine. After that, divide it into UTs and translate it. You can find the whole text at http://www.newsweek. com/surprising-ways-stress-affects-your-health-82675 (last access: July 9, 2015). The Surprising Ways Stress Affects Your Your Health  (…) Like our ancestors, we all occasionally face the single, sudden and extreme stressors that the stress response evolved to protect us from. (…) Our response to such sudden and extreme stressors can protect us, but it also can have dire consequences if we already have heart disease. (…)

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT We have seen the way Translation, as a science, and translation, as a practice, depend on several elements and studies. Even when we are not fully aware of all the cognitive processes involved in translation, we use all the mechanisms we are provided with or can and will take advantage from. When it gets to your turn to do a translation, you must be aware that the more you know about how language works and how it can be influenced by external factors, the more open you will be to the process as a whole. The more open you are, the better your work will be. As to the best method and how language is divided, one should accept there will always be controversies. Eventually, you will find what suits you best, and you may develop your own mixture of techniques. Who knows? You may even realize there is much more to translation than the 3Cs. You will find your own voice as a translator. You will find and follow your own path. All it requires is practice, an open mind and study.

RECOMMENDED READING ALVES, Fábio, MAGALHÃES, Célia, PAGANO, Adriana, Traduzir com autonomia : estratégias para o tradutor em e m formação. São Paulo: Editora Contexto. 2000. OTTONI, Paulo (org). Tradução: a prática das diferenças. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2005. p. 241 - 256

REFERENCES ALVES, Fábio, MAGALHÃES, Célia, PAGANO, Adriana, Traduzir com autonomia: estratégias para o tradutor em formação. São Paulo: Editora Contexto. 2000. BROWER, Reuben A. (org). On translation: On a Linguistics Aspects of Translation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1959. p.232 - 239 KOLAWOLE, S.O.. Interdisciplinarity in Language, Linguistics and Translation. In: International International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention, volume 2, issue 9, p.7 – 12, 2013. NEWARK, Peter. The textbook of translation. New York: Prentice Hall. 1988. NIDA, Eugene A.; TABER, Charles R.. The theory and practice of translation. Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishing, 2003.  SAUSSURE, Ferdinand. Curso de Linguística Geral. São Paulo: Cultrix. 2006. OBSON.PDF> (last access: July 1, 2015)

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< http://www.newworlden http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/e cyclopedia.org/entry/Roman_Jak ntry/Roman_Jakobson> obson> (last access: July 1, 2015) < http://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/ps http://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/psycholinguistics.h ycholinguistics.htm tm > (last access: July 10, 2015) < http://www.encyclopedia.co http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/psycho m/topic/psycholinguistics.asp linguistics.aspx> x> (last access: July 5, 2015) (last access: July 10, 2015)