issues in translation studies-pp presentation.ppt

Jeremy Munday

Cicero

I. The History of Translation Practice and Early Theory:

Most of the writings in translation were initially based on practice and made by individual translators to justify and discuss their choice of a particular translation startegy.

St Jerome

In his essay “The Best Kind of Orator”, Cicero describes the strategies he used in translating models of classical Greek oratory:

I thought it my duty to undertake a task which will be useful to students, though not necessarily myself…And I did not translate

them as an interpreter but as an orator, keeping the same ideas and the forms or as

one might say, the ‘figures’ of thought, but in language which conforms to our usage.

And in so doing, I did not hold it necessary to render word for word, but I preserved

the general style and force of the language.( Cicero 46 BCE, trans. H. M. Hubbell, in Robinson 1997a:9)

One of the most famous translation of the Bible is that of St Jerome. He warns against the sensitive nature of religious texts and also provides a description of his own strategy, saying:

Now I not only admit but freely announce that in translating from Greek – except of course in the case of the Holy Scripture, where even the syntax is a mystery – I render, not word for word, but sense for sense.

( Jerome 395/1997:25)

II. The Rise of Translation Studies:

• A relatively new field of research Compared to other disciplines, translation studies is a

relatively new field, starting to emerge in the 2nd half of the 20th centuries out of other disciplines such as comparative

literature and linguistics.

• Confusion is a key word

Confusion about the name is a reflection of the confusion regarding “the scope and structure of the discipline. What constitutes the field of translation studies?” James S. Holmes (1972: 175)

III. What is Translation?

In their Dictionary of Translation Studies, Shuttleworth and Cowie acknowledge the fact that translation is “ An incredibly broad notion which can be understood in many different ways.”

Roman Jakobson’s definition

Hatim and Munday’s definition

Munday’s cline of strategies

Written translation and interpreting

One of the ways to understand translation is the well-known definition of Roman Jakobson:

1. Intralingual translation or rewording is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other

sings of the same language (paraphrase)

2. Interlingual translation or translation proper is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of

signs of some other language.

3. Intersemiotic translation or transmutation is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs

of nonverbal sign systems.Jakobson (1959/2004: 139)

Another definition is that of Hatim and Munday, tending to focus on “the ambit of translation:

1. The process of transferring a written text form SL to TL, conducted by a translator, or translators, in a specific socio-cultural context.

2. The written product, or TT, which results from that process and which functions in the socio-cultural context of the TL.

3. The cognitive, linguistic, visual, cultural and ideological phenomena which are an integral part of 1 and 2. Hatim and Munday (2004:5)

Another side of the meaning of translation is the distiction between written translation and interpreting.

Some definitions do not refer to in any way to interpreting, while others indicate that it is included

under the term “translation”.

There are also some definitions, characterized by duality, which point out that interpreting is both an increasingly independent field of research, and also

included within translation studies along with specialized fields as audiovisual translation.

IV. The Scope of Translation Studies:

V. Cultural and Other Turns in Translation Studies:

There has been an increasing influence of cultural studies on translation in the 1980s and 1990s. This cultural turn has many consequences:

• The interrogation of long-held tenets of translation.

•The focus on the translators rather than texts.

•The question of commonality.

Thank You