can theory help translator and interpreter trainers and...

Can Theory Help Translator and Interpreter Trainers and Trainees?�

Marianne LedererUniversité Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle (ESIT), France

Abstract. This paper starts with defining ‘theory’, ‘translation’ and the type of training given in translation institutions. The trainers on whom the paper focuses are professional translators, and the trainees are advanced-level students. The question is raised as to whether trainers should also be translation scholars, and whether they should be cognizant with one or all of the various theories of translation. Several theories used in translator training are then reviewed. The paper finally discusses a number of theoretical principles (mostly based on the interpretive theory of translation, though some are common to several theories) and their implica-tions for translator training. These principles enable trainers to explain to trainees the difference between language and discourse, and hence the reason why literal translation does not work at text level; the way understanding emerges from the merging of linguis-tic meanings with real world knowledge, and hence the necessity of documentary research; the way the text should be analyzed in order for trainees to internalize its sense; how trainees may detach themselves from the meanings and structures of the original in order to reformulate it idiomatically. Drawing on such principles, trainers can give their students a working methodology – they are able to build up a didactic progression grounded on a rational grading of texts, and to assess the work of trainees on the basis of objective criteria.

Let me start this paper with two preliminary remarks.First, I do not believe in separate general theories for explaining the pro-

cess of written translation and oral interpreting. I would argue that although practical modalities and constraints are different, the cognitive processes of translation and interpretation are basically the same. Even though partial empirical research may bear on one or the other of these activities, theory

� This title is a clear reference to Chesterman and Wagner’s book Can Theory Help Transla-tors? (2002), since the question may well be asked for translation trainers and trainees.

The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 1(1), 2007, 15-35

ISSN: 1750-399X © St. Jerome Publishing, Manchester

16 Can Theory Help Translator and Interpreter Trainers and Trainees?

embraces both, and the conclusions drawn should also apply, beyond the restricted field of translation and interpretation, to discourse comprehension and production in general. I shall therefore use the hypernym ‘translation’ throughout, on the understanding that the word also applies to interpreting. Whenever the need arises to mention one or the other specifically, I shall say so explicitly.

Second, as Nord rightly argues, “linguistic and cultural competence both on the source and the target side … is the main prerequisite of translation activity” (�992:47). It is also a prerequisite for learning translation. For various reasons, a number of schools admit students just out of secondary schooling and therefore have to concentrate on language enhancement and subject area courses. Translation proper is taught later. My comments will bear on the advanced part (Master’s level) of the training process.

�. Setting the stage

To set the stage, I begin with a few definitions.For the present purpose, theory will be understood as a set of principles

used to explain a class of phenomena, the phenomena of interest in our case being those of translation. This is not the place to discuss whether a given theory is ‘scientific’ or not. Given that any teaching is based on a theory, whether explicit or not, my aim is to show the implications for translation teaching of drawing on a number of theoretical principles.

In the second half of the 20th century, when interest in translation studies began to gather momentum, a number of more or less elaborate theories emerged, and these are currently used in teaching translators. The basis for training translators will vary according to which theory is applied by trainers. I will return to the issue of theories in section 2.

Numerous definitions of translation can be found in the literature. In his well-known article ‘On Linguistic Aspects of Translation’, Jakobson (1958/1971:261-62) defines three kinds of translation (intralingual, interlin-gual and intersemiotic) and a few lines further down adds: “Most frequently, however, translation from one language into another substitutes messages in one language not for separate code-units but for entire messages in some other language”. Delisle (�980/�988:89) sees translation as “a search for equivalent ways of expressing a single intended meaning”. These two quota-tions define the translation I am dealing with here, i.e. a process that is much less linguistic than cognitive.

Let us now circumscribe the kind of texts on the basis of which translation is being taught. Until recently, translation studies was mostly concerned with literary translation, following Steiner’s advice that “[i]t is the upper range of semantic events which make problems of translation theory and practice most visible, most incident to general questions of language and mind. It is

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the literary speech forms, in the wide sense, which ask and promise most” (�975:252). The study of literary translation still attracts numerous translation scholars; but today, much empirical and experimental work is being done on pragmatic texts which, we now realize, also promise a lot. Pragmatic texts generally also provide the basis for teaching translation. The need for translat-ing general, economic, legal, technical and scientific texts is enormous today, compared with the volume of literary translation. And since as a profession2 the latter does not pay, it is not usually included in the curriculum of transla-tion schools, or if it is taught at all, it only makes up a very marginal part of the curriculum. The difference between these two types of text in the context of teaching translation is reflected in the emphasis placed on one or the other of the two stages of translation, namely understanding and reformulating.

What about teaching and teachers? The time of the ‘nature versus nurture’ controversy is long past. Today, it is widely recognized that translation not only can but should be taught. Whether state-run or private, most training institutions (which I henceforth call ‘schools’) aim to produce translators who meet market needs and expectations and who can find jobs at the end of their studies.

Just as the word translation may mean several things (the product or the process, translation for language learning purposes or professional transla-tion, i.e. translation proper) so do the words translation teacher. A number of schools still hire language teachers to teach translation, naïvely assum-ing that anyone who knows a foreign language can translate and also teach translation. This is clearly problematic, because in order for someone to teach procedural knowledge he or she has to master the know-how themselves. To teach translation, one has to be an expert practitioner; practice provides an understanding (not always a theory) of translation and its problems, as well as an understanding of what is expected from translators in the work market.

Not all expert translators, however, are endowed with pedagogical skill, which is one of the reasons why language teachers who have received training in pedagogy feel they might be better than translators at teaching translation. I would suggest, however, that it is easier and quicker for expert translators to acquire some theoretical principles to help them teach a skill they master, than for language teachers to become expert translators.

2. Translation theory and translator trainers

Translation teaching is necessarily based on a number of theoretical assumptions (whether explicit or not) about what translation is and how it is done. Although

2 Very few translators are able to live off literary translation; most work as teachers or as technical translators and do literary translation on the side.


not all translation teachers are aware of their own theoretical assumptions, a few explicit theories compete in the field of translation training.

2.1 Theory or theories?

The question is well worth asking: in the late 90s, the European Commission’s Joint Interpreting and Conference Service (JICS), wishing to improve the quality, and therefore the training, of future interpreters in Europe, undertook to set up a European Masters in Conference Interpreting. At their initiative, the Heads of a few recognized schools met in Brussels and agreed on a set of common rules (entry requirements, who should teach and what, the order in which consecutive and simultaneous modes ought to be taught, final diploma requirements, etc.). A course on theory was introduced in the curriculum. However, the content of such a course could not be decided on. Each one of the schools’ representatives had their own view as to what the content of the course should be: for some it was merely ethics, for others linguistics, or a given theory of translation. Still others were of the opinion that students should be exposed to a number of translation theories, leaving it up to students to decide which they felt was most helpful. However interesting (and useful for advanced students in translation research), this view ignores the fact that the aim of training courses is to avoid would-be translators having to learn slowly by trial and error while looking for the most adequate strategies, and to offer them shortcuts to competence. Leaving aside the question of whether a course on theory is necessary or not in a translator training curriculum, I would suggest that one theory – and only one, irrespective of which – should be chosen as a basis for translation teaching in a given context.

2.2 Translation teachers or translation scholars?

Expert translators who devote some of their time to training future transla-tors should be given enough training in translation theory and neighbouring fields to qualify them for teaching the skill they master. Does this mean that translation trainers need to become translation scholars?

Suppose a school chooses to focus its teaching of theory on the psycho-logical aspects of the translating process. Cognitive psychology is far from having developed a unified view of mental operations. Let us, for example, look at two influential books, Comprehension – a Paradigm for Cognition by Walter Kintsch, published in �998, and The Way We Think – Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities by Fauconnier and Turner, published in 2002. The models developed by the authors are based on different assumptions, they explore different avenues; both contribute to knowledge, but a good part of their theories is still at the speculative stage. Should translation teachers be required to delve into the details of cognitive

Marianne Lederer 19

psychology research? They would soon become confused and discouraged, without much profit for their students.

Kussmaul (�995:2-3) takes a more realistic attitude. In the introduction to his book Training the Translator, he writes that his “aim will be to explore various aspects of the methodology of translation” and that he will draw on psycholinguistics, textlinguistics, speech act theory, text typology and functional sentence perspective. He hopes teachers might find the content of his book useful for their teaching but does not recommend that they should familiarize themselves with the various fields he touches upon. This seems an entirely reasonable position: translation teachers do not have to be trans-lation scholars. For the purposes of teaching, they do not need the in-depth knowledge required of translation scholars, whose task it is to contribute to the advancement of science. One of the duties of those of us who are per-manently attached to universities and are thus expected to do research is to impart some basic theoretical principles to fellow free-lance translators who devote a few hours a week to teaching translation.3

Starting from the assumption that translation teachers are busy translation professionals, basic explanations of the mental operations (text comprehen-sion and production) involved in translation, along with some simplified views of context-sensitive linguistics, will probably be sufficient. If more was needed, there would surely be a serious shortage of trainers in transla-tion schools!

3. Various theories applied to translation teaching

Linguistic translation theories developed diachronically into three approaches, each of which have been or are still applied in translation teaching.

The oldest approach is literal translation, of which Snell-Hornby writes: “The linguistic theory of that time [the �960s and early �970s], whose maximum unit of analysis was the sentence, was singularly unfortunate as a frame of reference for translation” (1992:21). Nevertheless, its influence on translation training persists, probably due to the “legacy of language teaching” (Colina 2002:�). Colina (ibid.:2) explains the historical under-pinnings for what she calls ‘grammar translation’, which is “closely related to linguistic theories like structuralism, in which language study focused on form (mostly phonology and morphology), ignoring the communicative aspects of language”. Students entering translation schools are often found to have internalized this theory, which does not enhance translation learning. Its methods are criticized by many translators and translator trainers – for the

3 At ESIT, for instance, there are �� full-time teachers/researchers compared to about a hundred part-time translators/teachers who give one or two courses a week (translation is taught in about thirty language combinations).


repercussions of this attitude in the classroom, and a thorough bibliography, see Colina (2002).

The second approach is contrastive analysis, still very much in favour the world over, at least in university departments that teach French and trans-lation. Proponents of this approach tend to rely on Vinay and Darbelnet’s Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais (Comparative Stylistics of French and English – A Methodology for Translation, �957/�998).4 This textbook highlights the differences between French and English and gives a number of useful correspondences for set expressions and idioms. However, although they make it possible to define a posteriori the strategy used by translators for the transfer of a given phrase or sentence, its seven “procédés techniques de traduction” are not adequate for translating. Moreover, the contrastive analysis remains restricted to the level of language (and can thus be used for language teaching) but does not take into account creativity in translation. Its scope is therefore too limited for translation teaching.

The third and more modern approach is text linguistics, which studies language use in communicative settings. A great improvement over the first two approaches, it compares the source and target texts in terms of seven ‘standards of textuality’ (Beaugrande and Dressler �98�), namely cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informativity, situationality, inter-textuality. According to Mason (�998:64), “[a] text-linguistic approach … relates textual occurrences to purposes and motivations of text producers and receivers and to the socio-textual practice of speech communities”. However, Salama-Carr (�990:�68) warns that if textlinguistics is incorrectly applied to translation training, it could lead to translation being re-claimed by linguistics, which would demand training in linguistics prior to training in translation and familiarity with terminology which is not only complex but heterogeneous. It is thus the text, and not its content, which in this type of analysis becomes the object of study. The fledgling translator will stumble upon lexical problems and lose sight of the meaning of the text, returning to the word as the unit of translation. Be that as it may be, the stress placed on the comparison of source and target texts seems to be more appropriate for translation criticism and student assessment than for translation training proper.

According to the functionalist theory, “the prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose (Skopos) of the overall translational action” (Nord �997:27). As a theory for teaching, insofar as it denies the source text practically any influence over the translation, the risk is that trainees may feel virtually unrestrained in translating a text. This is why as a translation teacher Nord felt it necessary to add the concept of ‘loyalty’, which

4 Darbelnet told me personally years ago that when he and Vinay started writing their book, they did not intend it at all as a “methodology for translation”. The subtitle was imposed upon them by the publisher, who clearly had good marketing sense!

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restores the source text “to, at least, part of its former influence, although not necessarily as far as its surface qualities are concerned” (�992:4�). The posi-tive aspect of this theory is that text analysis is not restricted to intratextual factors but extends to extratextual elements which are analyzed before read-ing the text “since the situation normally precedes textual communication” (ibid.:43). The translator compares the result of his or her analysis of the original text “with the result of his analysis of the translation scopos. Compar-ing both results, the translator is able to decide whether and in what respect the source text ‘material’ has to be adapted to the target situation and what procedures of adaptation will produce an adequate target text” (�997:45).

This theory has been and continues to be extensively applied in German schools. Its novelty is that it situates translation at all stages not only within a communicative framework but more precisely in the middle of market forces. Students are made to realize from the start that translation is not done in a vacuum, that its aim is to be of use to people who need it and who may have their own requirements. Perhaps, however, the emphasis is being put too much on these external factors (which are certainly an important element in the strategies applied to translation, but one element only amongst others) and not quite enough on the psychological stages of the translation process itself.

Information processing models have also been developed, though they have been restricted to simultaneous interpretation and have involved “com-plex multi-stage serial accounts” (Setton �999:34). Some aspects are being applied to training interpreters (see Moser �978), but to my knowledge no theory applicable to translation training in general has yet been developed.

The interpretive theory of translation is yet another theory “which [has] been developed with an orientation toward translator training, and this is still one of the main fields in which [it is] most useful”, if I may borrow this sentence as applied by Nord (�997:39) to functionalist approaches. The interpretive theory takes into account the general psychological processes of the understanding and production of discourse and the function of both source and target texts, and underscores the role played by translators in carrying sense across language barriers. This, plus the methodology for succeeding in the task, is what the interpretive theory tries to impart to trainees.

In fact, looking at the theories sketched above one is struck by the fact that sense is never mentioned. It is absent in the early linguistic theories which are concerned with finding fixed correspondences for words or set expressions across languages. Sense may not be totally absent but it is largely implicit in the textlinguistic theory which compares rhetorical structures and pragmatic aspects of text development in two languages. It is also, at least nominally, difficult to discern in functionalist theories, which focus more on external factors than on what is meant by the authors of texts.

Since deconstructionism, it is fashionable to question the possibility of establishing the sense of a text with any degree of certainty. This view is the


very negation of translatability (paraphrasing the famous dictum by Galileo, I am tempted to say “e pur, si traduce….”), and is at odds with what happens in the real world: in the overwhelming majority of oral and written texts, sense,5 that is speakers’ meaning in context and situation, is understood by transla-tors who master the language and have the necessary relevant knowledge. It is transmitted to readers, provided they also have the relevant knowledge6 required to understand it.

Taking sense as a basis for a theory of translation teaching might be thought simplistic or flawed, but training programmes based on the interpret-ive theory are widely respected and have proved successful (Brisset �993, Lavault �999, Setton �999). Trainers’ use of basic principles in psychology enables them to teach students first and foremost how to approach sense, i.e. how to put themselves in a position to understand the speech they interpret or the text they translate. In addition, a basic understanding of a few linguis-tic and rhetorical principles, i.e. mainly the difference between language systems and discourse in texts, enables them to offer students the necessary methodology for the reformulation stage.

4. Theoretical principles for teachers

Within the limits of this paper,7 my remarks must perforce remain on a very general level when dealing with theoretical principles for teaching purposes. I will have to be more specific as to the theory the remarks themselves stem from, however. Since it is the one I know best, the interpretive theory of translation8 will inform my discussion in the remaining part of this paper.

The practitioners who started teaching interpretation at ESIT in the 60s and 70s developed teaching methods based on a theory which was first grounded in practice and teaching experience. When the school first started, trainers told students intuitively how to go about translating and showed them how they did it themselves. But the need to explain the reasons for the advice given soon convinced some of them that they should not only undertake some experiments on consecutive and simultaneous interpretation in order to verify their intuitions, but should also look at what had been achieved by neighbouring areas. At the time, translation studies was not yet a discipline

5 For a discussion of the treatment of ‘sense’ in the interpretive theory of translation, see Lederer (2005). 6 What Relevance Theory calls “cognitive environment”, see Gutt (1991:96).7 I have also had to leave aside the question of a course on theory in translator training, and whether a school should have a unified theory or should leave each trainer free to teach on the basis of his or her own theoretical principles.8 For more information on the origins and development of the theory, see Israël and Lederer (2005).

Marianne Lederer 23

in its own right. It was considered part of applied linguistics. Our trainers examined the linguistics of the time,9 but they found that it offered them little help. Despite the convictions of the people they were working for (“don’t try to understand” meaning “you won’t be able to”, so “just translate”), practice had convinced them of the importance of understanding sense, and they wanted to see how various disciplines explained the process. They finally found convincing explanations (for the most part verified and elaborated by modern cognitive psychology) of how the mind works in Piaget’s work on developmental psychology, and later in the neuropsychologist J. Barbizet’s findings on the brain, which were largely confirmed later by research done with more sophisticated tools than existed at the time. ESIT trainers felt they were thus able to offer their students a few basic principles.

4.1 Understanding

The two stages of the translating process generally discussed in the literature are understanding the text to be translated and reformulating the results of this understanding (i.e. sense) in the other language. Understanding means converting graphic signs into sense. Cognitive inputs of several kinds make this possible.

Cognitive inputs

Native listeners and readers are usually not aware of the way in which cog-nitive inputs shape our understanding. Language alone seems to be present, but situational, contextual and world knowledge come into play quite naturally. In every day conversation, when listening to each other, the part played by knowledge of language is difficult to distinguish from that played by background information. However, we sometimes realize we lack some knowledge other than that of language in order to understand fully what we are reading. This is of course also true for the translator. A text to be translated is not just made of words on paper. It cannot be translated word for word because isolated words, words in dictionaries, have potential meanings but their relevant meaning in texts is assigned to them on the basis of extra-linguistic knowledge. Thus background knowledge associated with language plays a role in understanding discourse.

Background knowledge is a blanket expression covering a number of ‘cognitive inputs’ that are necessary for understanding acts of speech. In ad-dition to language proper, these include knowledge of the world, of time and place, of the circumstances out of which a speech or a text arises, memory of

9 For an account of this process, see Lederer (�994).


things said previously, knowing who is the speaker or the author and who are the listeners or readers to whom the text is addressed. When the following sentence is given out of context

It was the middle of December and exactly the middle of the century

readers may understand each word of it but they will not get its sense, i.e. the exact date. Put back in its context, where it appears on the first page of A Christmas Visitor, a novel by Anne Perry (2004), the temporal reference can be interpreted. Readers do not only understand the English word, they add to it the knowledge that the author specializes in novels set in the Victorian era. Moreover, the first lines of the novel mention a pony trap waiting for a passenger at a railway station. Railways and a horse carriage can only mean a nineteenth-century setting. Though not mentioned explicitly, the exact date is easily inferred as �850. The words “the middle of the century” in themselves carry a linguistic meaning and nothing else. Embedded in a text, they take on a relevant pragmatic meaning which is inferred by readers on the basis of extralinguistic knowledge.

sense for the translator

While graphic signs taken in isolation are interpreted into concepts, signs in a text are interpreted into sense. Translators are faced not with mere concepts, but with interrelated things, facts, arguments, emotions.

Because sense is based on the cognitive inputs of individual readers or translators, it is to some degree an individual matter; its depth will vary ac-cording to the knowledge and the world experience of each person. Whatever its individual features, however, the sense intended and understood by each of the communication partners overlaps to a great extent, so that communication usually proceeds fairly smoothly. Translators, acting as mediators between authors who want to communicate and readers who want to understand them, operate in this area of overlap. Their readers bring their own cognitive complements to the translated text. The translators’ rendering enables them to discover the text according to their own relevant knowledge and motiva-tions, superficially or deeply, in the same way as readers of the original. Understanding a text is universal, the translator’s understanding is only a specific case of the universal process. The difference between translators and ordinary readers is that readers are free to interpret the sense of the text any way they like, whereas translators, using all the knowledge relevant to the text and remaining within the limits allowed by this text, must cling to the speakers’ meaning, the aim being to put their own readers in a position to give the text as many interpretations as readers of the original were able to entertain. Texts may at times be experienced as ambiguous. This is usually due either to lack of relevant knowledge on the part of readers, or lack of

Marianne Lederer 25

clarity in the formulation for various reasons (authors writing in a foreign language, text written too quickly and not revised, etc.). In the great majority of texts used for translator training, speakers’ meanings will be fairly clear and understanding sense will pose little or no problem.

4.2 The stage between understanding and reformulation

What happens when sense emerges? Having delivered the notional and/or emotional message in conjunction with relevant extralinguistic knowledge, linguistic signs become irrelevant and can vanish with no consequences. Easily detected in interpreting, their disappearance is more difficult to observe in written translation. Deverbalization is not as obvious because the original text is there, the graphic signs endure, they do not disappear as do the sounds of oral speech. Deverbalization is a natural feature of interpretation but requires an effort on the part of the translator. It is nevertheless present in the form of translators’ awareness of what an author means in a given passage and is a prerequisite for producing idiomatic language in the target text. It can be given different labels, such as ‘dissociation of languages’ or ‘mental repre-sentation’ in the mind, which is then verbalized in the other language.

Chesterman (in Chesterman and Wagner 2002:9-�0) explains the phe-nomenon as follows:

It means simply that a translator or interpreter has to get away from the surface structure of the source text, to arrive at the intended mean-ing, and then express this intended meaning in the target language. … In other words, deverbalization is a technique used to avoid unwanted formal interference: professional translators need to process the in-tended meaning in their own words, rather than try to mechanically manipulate source-text structures.

Without going into a discussion of whether deverbalization is a technique or part of the translating process, one thing is certain: although in the past deverbalization as a concept has been the object of much criticism, today this stage is recognized as indispensable not only by interpreters but also by translators, because it makes it much easier to discover modes of expression that are not influenced by the original language.

4.3 Carrying sense over to the other language

Having deverbalized, in other words having left aside the words and struc-ture of the source-language text, translators proceed to express a sense that they have internalized, as they would in monolingual communication when


creating a new text.Producing an idiomatic translation is usually the goal. The controversial

question of whether a translation should read like an original or a translation does not apply to pragmatic texts on which trainees learn to translate. Those who need this type of translation are not interested in how a foreign language expresses things but in what it expresses, in its informational content. Not allowing themselves to be distracted by the signs of the foreign language, translators thus consider how best to express the ideas contained in the text while adhering to the norms of their own language. This does not mean that their translation will not contain some words that seem to be a transcoding of words found in the original text. But the sense of a segment of text can rarely be transmitted simply by applying lexical and syntactic correspondences. As early as �964, Nida (�964:�56) wrote that “[s]ince no two languages are identical, either in the meanings given to corresponding symbols or in the ways in which such symbols are arranged in phrases and sentences, it stands to reason that there can be no absolute correspondence between languages”. Translation should, according to Delisle (�980/�988:89), “reproduce the meaning�0 of a text using the expressive resources of another language”. This is best done by searching “for equivalent ways of expressing a single intended meaning” (ibid.) and looking at the way authors in that language would normally express this or a similar thought.

Word CorrespondenCes

When comparing any given translation with its original, a lot of words are found that match across the two languages. This may partly explain the misconception that translating is equal to transcoding. It does not mean that the translator worked word for word. Any translation is in fact a mixture of word correspondences and discourse equivalents. Let us take as an example an extract from the text Delisle uses in his Analyse du discours comme méthode de traduction/Translation: an Interpretive Approach (1980/1988), the first large-scale attempt at a methodology for translator training.

To place the segment in context, here is the first sentence:

After the removal of her left breast because of cancer in �970, Mrs. Joan Dawson, 54, of New York City, spent the next three years bat-tling depression and a sense of loss.

Here is the extract proper:

�0 ‘Sense’, in the terminology of the interpretive theory.

Marianne Lederer 27

She decided to do something about it. Most women in the same situation turn to a psychiatrist. Mrs Dawson went to her doctor and asked him to rebuild her missing breast.

The proposed French translation reads as follows:

Un beau jour, elle décide d’agir. La plupart des femmes, en pareil cas, vont s’en remettre à un psychiatre, mais Mme Dawson, elle, retourne chez son médecin pour qu’il lui refasse un sein. [One beautiful day, she decides to act. Most women, in such a case, give themselves up to a psychiatrist. But Mrs. Dawson, she goes back to her doctor for him to remake a breast for her.]

Looking at corresponding words or phrases, we find the following:

She decided = elle décideMost women = la plupart des femmesPsychiatrist = psychiatreMrs. Dawson = Mme DawsonHer doctor = son médecinBreast = sein

Two ‘technical’ terms (‘psychiatrist’ and ‘breast’��) and one proper name (Mrs. Dawson) are matched to the corresponding terms in French, because in context these matches are obligatory. All texts, but particularly technical and scientific texts, contain a number of words whose meanings are not modified by the context: technical terms, figures, proper names, words in lists, etc. A technical term refers, both in language and in texts, to a well defined object or notion. The lexical correspondence established between two languages to designate the same object remains valid in texts (which does not mean that the correspondence will always be easy to find). In a given specialized domain, the correspondence will hold whatever the context.

The remaining matches (‘she decided’, ‘most women’, ‘her doctor’) are also transcoded, but here transcoding is not compulsory. The translator could have found different ways of expressing the same thing but did not choose to do so. Note, however, that these words are embedded in formulations that do not match the original word for word.

�� ‘Breast’, actualized in the context of cancer as it is here, becomes a technical term and cannot be translated by ‘poitrine’, as it might well be in a different context.


equivalent segments of text

Then she decided to do something about it. Most women in the same situation turn to a psychiatrist. Mrs Dawson went to her doctor and asked him to rebuild her missing breast.

Un beau jour, elle décide d’agir. La plupart des femmes, en pareil cas, vont s’en remettre à un psy-chiatre, mais Mme Dawson, elle, retourne chez son médecin pour qu’il lui refasse un sein.

For brevity’s sake, let us confine ourselves to the last sentence: “Mrs. Daw-son went to her doctor and asked him to rebuild her missing breast”. This is translated as “mais Mme Dawson, elle, retourne chez son médecin pour qu’il lui refasse un sein”. We have here an equivalence between two chunks of text but very few corresponding words. The surface structure of the text is quite different; sense is kept intact in a different form.

the expression of sense is language speCifiC

Several comments should be made on the formulation of the above sentence. The first draws on contrastive linguistics: the English past becomes a present tense in French. Others are of a more general nature. In English, some ele-ments of sense remain unsaid but are understood nevertheless. They are explicitly mentioned in the translation: “Other women … Mrs Dawson went to …” is rendered in French by “mais Mme Dawson, elle, retourne chez …”. The connectors ‘mais’ and ‘elle’ are required in French for reasons Delisle calls ‘textual organicity’ and textlinguistics calls ‘cohesion and coherence’. In English, they remain implicit.

At the end of the same sentence, “to rebuild her missing breast” becomes “pour qu’il lui refasse un sein”. In French, the word ‘missing’ has disap-peared. This is not a case of omission on the part of the translator. Whereas French needs explicit connectors, it does very well without the word ‘miss-ing’: readers know that Mrs. Dawson had one of her breasts removed; reminding them that it is missing is not necessary in French – they will infer the fact from previous information.

The explicit parts of texts are synecdoches (a part that stands for a whole). Languages not only differ in their lexicon and grammar but also in the way their native speakers express their thoughts in them. Texts are synecdoches but in two different languages the same sense is hardly ever expressed with the same explicit wording. It follows that in order to transmit sense transla-tors may have to change the relative weight of the explicit and implicit parts of sense, while keeping sense whole.

The fact that the expression of sense is language specific and that things

Marianne Lederer 29

have to be explicitly stated in one but can or even should remain elliptic in another, or vice versa, is vital for translation. So is the fact that the readers of the translation do not always have the same (cultural) knowledge as those of the original, which again means that information that can be left unsaid in one language has to be made explicit in the other.

5. The implications of theory for translator training

Trainers who are aware of these few theoretical principles (or of others, ac-cording to the theory chosen as a basis) will hopefully apply them in three different but interrelated directions: (a) introducing students to translation methodology, (b) rationalizing their didactic progression through a judicious selection of teaching materials, and (c) assessing trainees’ work.

5.1 Translation methodology

translation is about texts

Translating texts is not the same as translating languages; words in texts take on meanings that can be quite different from those they have out of context. Instructors aware of this basic linguistic principle will be able to explain why literal translation is dangerous. They will warn trainees against launching into translating a text before having read the whole of it. They will also explain why the use of bilingual dictionaries can lead translators astray: they provide correspondences of isolated concepts. Verbal context contributes to reducing the number of potential meanings, but although dictionaries may give a few verbal contexts for a given item they will never list all the possible contexts in which these concepts can be used in a text.

making use of relevant knoWledge

Aware of the essential part played by translators’ cognitive inputs in under-standing sense, instructors will insist on a text analysis designed to summon up in students’ minds as much relevant knowledge as possible. This can be done in brainstorming sessions, divided in two separate parts.

■ Summoning extratextual knowledge. In addition to understand-ing its language, understanding a text also means taking into account extralinguistic factors. In the example from Perry (2004) discussed under 4.� above, century is specified by the inferencing process triggered by knowledge about the author and context, which adds data to linguistic meanings and gives


them their sense. So, after a first reading of the text, trainees try to answer questions such as: Who wrote this text? For whom? When? What for? Do we know enough about the subject to un-derstand the author’s meaning? If not, where are we to look for further information? Students often find fault with texts when they do not understand them. Instructors can show them that by filling the gaps in their relevant knowledge, texts will become more intelligible. The need for thorough documentary research for specific texts will become evident.

■ Proceeding to an intratextual analysis.�2 Going into a more thorough analysis of the text itself, more questions will be raised. What topic does the author deal with, what strategies does she use to develop it, where does she start from, what does she achieve, and how? What about the genre of the text, its structure, its internal cohesion? How are the subtleties of arguments or allusions conveyed? Is the language conventional or creative?

These investigations will continue as long as exhaustive understanding is not achieved and until trainees have achieved both a holistic and very detailed view of the text.

deverbalizing

Lexical and structural interference is frequent in translation when the two languages are not kept apart. Instructors will show trainees the advantages offered by deverbalization. The brainstorming sessions mentioned under making use of relevant knoWledge above can also be used to demonstrate that sense is not attached to the words that conveyed it. Having ascertained that the text is thoroughly understood, trainers can ask a student to read a paragraph aloud and then, putting the text aside, state its content orally either in other words in the same language or in the other language, the other students adding details if necessary, or suggesting a different wording. Discourse equivalents are found more easily when the source text language is left aside.�3

reformulating the text

When the sense of the text has become sufficiently clear, and the original wording is forgotten, new questions will have to be answered: For whom

�2 For obvious reasons, intratextual analysis is only applicable to written translation.�3 Though he does not use the word ‘deverbalization’, Kussmaul (2005) recommends visualization as one technique for achieving ‘creative translation’.

Marianne Lederer 31

are we going to translate this text? And how?The translation has to make sense for its readers, who will mostly not

have the same cultural background as those for whom the original text was intended. This will often require explicitation, implicitation, changes in text structure, etc. Trainers aware of the principles outlined under section 3 will be able to allay the concerns of students who fear being accused of unfaithfulness if, on the surface, their text looks too different from the original. Trainers will have to go into the details of drafting a target text which corresponds to the original as regards its type and texture, whose cohesion and coherence make for comfortable reading, and which is adapted to the needs of its target readers. The principles discussed above can be used towards this end.

5.2 Didactic progression and selection of teaching materials

Didactic progression is largely based on a grading of texts adapted to the level of competence achieved by trainees. Hatim and Mason (�997:�95) underscore the importance of avoiding “the randomness inherent in some approaches to curriculum design in translator training”. Their approach to the selection of teaching materials for translator training is explicitly based on textlinguistics. The interpretive theory’s selection of teaching material stresses content rather than language use (as does the functionalist theory, see Nord �992). It is based on the various demands text types make on the comprehension and reformulation capacity of trainees. Cormier (�990:�84-85) suggests a typology of technical texts based on their function: texts for laymen, didactic texts, texts for specialists. Seleskovitch and Lederer (1989:54) suggest grading the difficulty of speeches�4 for interpreter training taking into account the type of exercises (consecutive or simultaneous) and the importance of the extralinguistic knowledge required. Because of the difference in modalities of oral and written translation, the order of presenta-tion of texts for translator training will obviously be somewhat different. It will be based on the criteria of content and form of texts, starting from texts where both content and form are easy for beginners, i.e. do not present any specific difficulty either in understanding or in reformulating the text in the other language, through texts where content is easy but form elaborate, texts whose content is difficult to understand but the form simple, to texts with both difficult content and form.�5

�4 Suggested grading of speeches for interpreter training: narrative speeches on a familiar topic, argumentative speeches on a familiar topic, narrative speeches on a new topic, argumentative speeches on a new topic, stylistically sophisticated speeches on a familiar topic, stylistically sophisticated speeches on a new topic, topic requiring preparation, descriptive speeches requiring terminological preparation, rhetorical speeches.�5 In terms of content, ‘difficult’ means that documentary research and/or arduous reasoning will be necessary. In terms of form, ‘easy’ means that the target text linguistic structure


The important thing is that trainers apply their theoretical knowledge to developing translation competence in students in a well thought-out progres-sion of their lesson plans. A rational selection of texts for teaching students to translate is an essential element in didactic progression.

5.3 Assessment of trainees’ work

Trainers have one more important task to perform, namely assessing students’ work. In doing so, when following the interpretive theory, they will be guided by three questions (Blondy-Mauchand 2004):

■ about comprehension (is the knowledge of the source language sufficient, is the knowledge of the subject adequate, has the texture of the text been sufficiently analyzed);

■ about methodology (has the source text surface structure been left aside, has consideration been given to the source text’s extra-linguistic context, have the target reader and target context been taken into consideration);

■ about the reformulation stage (the assessor will look at style, terminological precision, level of target language, fullness of the message).

Having assessed the translation on that basis, instructors will not reproach trainees for their errors nor correct them themselves. Rather they will point to the reasons for those errors before asking trainees to amend their text and, if necessary, remedy their shortcomings.

6. Conclusion

Moser-Mercer (�996:20�) writes that

a teaching theory must provide a coherent view of how it [transla-tion] is done, not a prescriptive true/false approach, not just anecdotal evidence. … The translation/interpreting teacher who is thoroughly familiar with the mental processes underlying translation and inter-preting will never resort to prescriptive translation teaching.

Professional translators know that there is no unique translation. In their own translation work, they often come up with several possible versions of the same idea, and choose one, knowing full well that another would have

may follow rather closely that of the source text, and ‘difficult’ that restructuring will be necessary.

Marianne Lederer 33

been just as satisfactory. When teaching, they will not impose upon trainees the teacher’s own ‘official’ version of a text. On the contrary, they will en-courage trainees to be creative.

Komissarov (�985:208) states that “translation theory is not supposed to provide the translator with ready-made solutions of his problems. Theory is no substitute for proper thinking or decision-making”. This also applies to the way trainers make use of theoretical principles in their teaching. To produce expert translators, having trainees translate a lot is not sufficient. Translation is a complex operation and theory helps in generalizing and sys-tematizing problems. Within its general frame, trainees are able to take some distance from specific details and assign their respective roles to the text, its content, loyalty, the translator’s initiatives, etc. As a result, their approach to translation problems will become more self-assured. Theory is certainly no substitute for proper thinking or decision-making, but it can be used by trainers to point trainees in the direction of productive thinking and supply them with a few principles that can aid them in their decision-making.

MARIANNE LEDERERESIT, Centre Universitaire Dauphine, 75116 Paris, France. [email protected]

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