ADEL 7423261
Introduction to Translation Studies
Department of English
King Faisal University
Spring 2019
Week 2
Translation without training
A long-held belief:
If you are bilingual, you can translate
NATURAL TRANSLATION (Harris 1978)
As one’s competencies in two languages
increase, so does one’s ability to successfully
translate; Thoughts?
Extreme take on this = perfectly balanced
bilinguals have an inherent capacity to translate
and formal training is not necessary = still
prevalent nowadays.
From “natural” to “trained”
What might be typical in a job ad written by employers who
buy into the natural translation philosophy?
Asked to both translate and interpret (or interpreting is
regarded as translation)
Translation in both language directions
Emphasis placed on experience in a given academic field or
work experience as opposed to degree/ work experience in
translation
No mention of CAT tools
Being “bilingual” is a necessary requisite for translating; How
is “bilingualism” for purposes of translation different from
“bilingualism” for purposes outside of translation?
From “natural” to “trained”
Bilingualism from the translator’s perspective:
1. Term RETRIEVAL and VERIFICATION is more important
than spontaneous generation from the mental lexicon
2. Often a much higher level of lexical and syntactic
complexity/precision
3. Comprehension-transfer-production-based vs.
comprehension/production-based
4. “Other”-initiated as opposed to self-initiated
If we regard translation as a skillset which can and SHOULD
be trained, we can focus on a series of competencies, or, as
Pym would call it, a MULTICOMPONENTIAL MODEL OF
TRANSLATION COMPETENCIES
What are some of the important competencies making up
this model?
A multicomponential model of
translation competencies
Derived by several TS scholars who insisted that
bilingualism is not enough (Bell 1991, Neubert 1994,
Hurtado 1996, Presas 1997,Kautz 2000) = mentioned
by Pym in his article
1. SOURCE LANGUAGE COMPETENCE
Ability to comprehend and decode the ST correctly
“Knowing the ST language” is a central part of this;
But, what else might source language competence
involve?
Knowing author INTENT = being able to “read between
the lines” to flesh out meaning
How might SL competence be trained/fostered in the
context of translator training?
Reading comprehension activities, sight/gist translation
activities, etc.
A multicomponential model of
translation competencies
2. TARGET LANGUAGE COMPETENCE
Ability to PRODUCE and encode the TT correctly = being
able to WRITE (monolingual) and FORMULATE text in the
TL
Do you think SL and TL need to be perfectly balanced in the
context of translation? Which is more important? Discuss
briefly in groups.
On average, most student errors have to do with
COMPREHENSION if translating into their L1 and
PRODUCTION if translating into their L2 =
DIRECTIONALITY as an important variable in translation
How can this be trained in the context of translator training?
3. INTERLINGUISTIC COMPETENCE
Awareness of lexical, syntactic, and stylistic differences
across a given language pair in a non-text specific, general
sense = rooted in CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTICS
A multicomponential model of
translation competencies
4. TRANSFER COMPETENCE
Ability to strategically utilize translation procedures that
take into account the translation’s function and target
audience
Centers around adhering to the TRANSLATION
BRIEF = a) the PURPOSE and b) the TARGET
AUDIENCE
It’s important to note that aspects of transfer actually
involve THREE “texts”, as opposed to only the ST and
TT; What might this third “text” be?
In addition to the ST and TT, you are also working with
a VIRTUAL TEXT =a mental representation of all
possible TT options for corresponding ST units
A “mental work in progress….a “not-yet-realized TT”
(Neubert and Shreve 1992); What does this imply?
A multicomponential model of
translation competencies
A successful translator considers ALL POSSIBLE OPTIONS
and then narrows them down to one “correct” option based
on purpose and readership = At the heart of TRANSFER
COMPETENCE;
This is what Pym’s proposed MINIMALIST APPROACH is
all about (more on this later)
5. TEXTUAL COMPETENCE
An awareness of text genre conventions in the SL and TL
Genre conventions can vary widely across languages and
cultures; Examples?
Resumes, recipes, syllabi, police reports, recommendation
letters, prescription medication inserts, …
Best way to foster textual competence?
Read tons of parallel texts; corpus-based analysis of lexico
grammatical patterns
A multicomponential model of
translation competencies
6. CULTURAL COMPETENCE
Awareness of the sociocultural context within which the ST
and TT are received
Has to do with knowing CULTURAL PREFERENCES AND
EXPECTATIONS in both the SC and TC
How might cultural preferences be embodied verbally and
non-verbally in a text? Discuss briefly in groups.
Notions of directness vs. indirectness are culturally-rooted;
notions of “distance” vs. “closeness” in writing style;
personalized vs. impersonalized; active vs. passive voice;
time orientation (monochronic = linear vs. polychronic =
circular)
How might the following text/graphic need to be changed if
targeting your culture (whatever that might be):
https://www.adsoftheworld.com/media/print/barque_smokeh
ouse_pork
A multicomponential model of
translation competencies
7. TERMINOLOGICAL COMPETENCE
“Familiarity” with key terminology and the ability to find, store
and manage terms quickly; How is terminological competence
in translation different from terminological competence for
second language use in a general sense?
Being able to retrieve terms is more important than having
them “internalized” or “memorized”
The degree of terminological complexity is likely to be much
higher when translating
Constructing term bases and TMs exhibits this competence =
you will have an entire course on this!
What is usually found in a term base entry for a given term?
Domain, grammatical information, a definition, a contextual
example of usage, collocates for both the term and its TL
equivalent
Logic behind a term base = a target text is populated with TL
terminology as a “pre-translation” stage; Thoughts?
A multicomponential model of
translation competencies
8. SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE COMPETENCE
Basic background knowledge in the domains in which one
works; How can this be obtained?
Taking university courses (in-class, distance learning),
reading field-specific journals, retrieving and storing
monolingual (L1) glossaries, etc.
So, who’s the better translator? The trained translator new to
a given subject or the bilingual subject expert with no formal
translation training?
9. RESEARCH COMPETENCE
Competence in information retrieval strategies = finding
terms, assistive texts, translation brief-oriented research
(i.e., who is my target audience?) = DOCUMENTATION
SKILLS
What other skills are being fostered in Research and
Writing?
A multicomponential model of
translation competencies
ASSISTIVE TEXTS
1. PARALLEL TEXT = same topic, genre, purpose, and
target audience as the text to be translated; How
used?
Primarily to facilitate TRANSFER COMPETENCE, but
also textual competence
2. BACKGROUND TEXT = same topic, different
purpose/ target audience/genre; How used?
Primarily to facilitate SUBJECT COMPETENCE
10. TECHNOLOGICAL COMPETENCE
Ability to work with CAT tools, word processing
features, documents in various formats, etc.
So, if your family and friends ask what exactly it is that
you are studying in intro to translation studies, these
competencies can serve as food for thought
From multicomponential to minimalist:
Pym’s competence model
The MINIMALIST APPROACH is centered around two core
competences:
1. The ability to generate a series of more than one viable
target text options (TTI, TT2, …TTn) = GENERATION
2. Being able to decide on and justify a “final translation” from
these options based on contextual (linguistic and
extralinguistic) factors = REDUCTIVE REASONING
It is these two competencies that need to be DIRECTLY
TRAINED; Thoughts?
Preparation for Week 3
1. Read textbook, Chapter 3 (Equivalence and equivalence
effect), pages 57-72 only
2. Respond to Reflection Question #1:
Illustrate Pym’s minimalist competency model with a concrete
example. BRIEFLY discuss how competencies guided
generating options and narrowing them down in conjunction
with this example.
“More information” texts = two YouTube clips authored by
Anthony Pym, in conjunction with his textbook “Exploring
Translation Theories”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G5oAMWfObI&index=1&lis
t=PL835F930889F12D2A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP9PcjIMkVU&index=2&list
=PL835F930889F12D2A
