January 2007
(The short notes and comments associated with
the items presented here are personal attempts to contribute useful
information. In some cases, I have reproduced partly an abstract or
presentation provided by the author or publisher. In others, the comments were
made by me after reading the items. I acknowledge the subjective nature of my
comments, take responsibility for errors and will gladly insert corrections at
the request of authors. D. Gile)
MONOGRAPHS
Jean Boase-Beier. 2006. Stylistic
Approaches to Translation.
From the publisher’s ad:
The concept of style is central to our understanding
and construction of texts. But how do translators take style into account in reading
the source text and in creating a target text?
This book attempts to bring some coherence to a
highly interdisciplinary area of translation studies, situating different views
and approaches to style within general trends in linguistics and literary criticism
and assessing their place in translation studies itself. Some of the issues
addressed are the link between style and meaning, the interpretation of
stylistic clues in the text, the difference between literary and non-literary
texts, and more practical questions about the recreation of stylistic effects.
These various trends, approaches and issues are brought together in a
consideration of the most recent cognitive views of style, which see it as
essentially a reflection of mind.
Underlying
the book is the notion that knowledge of theory can affect the way we
translate. Far from being prescriptive, theories which describe what we know in
a general sense can become part of what an individual translator knows, thus
opening the way for greater awareness and also greater creativity in the act of
translation. Throughout the discussion, the book considers how insights into
the nature and importance of style might affect the actual translation of
literary and non-literary texts.
COLLECTIVE VOLUMES
Heine, Carmen, Klaus Schubert, Heidrun Gerzymisch-Arbogast (eds). 2006. Text und
Translation. Theory and Methodology of Translation.
(Jahrbuch Übersetzen und Dolmetschen, DGÜD) Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
Hansen, Gyde. Entscheidungen, Anstöβe und Aktivierungsreize
bei Introspektion zur Erforschung von
Übersetzungsprozessen. 3-16.
* In this paper, the author raises
methodological issues around the use of TAP and introspection in general in
research into the translation process. Inter alia,
she highlights the risks of interference between the verbalization process in
TAP and the actual translation process, the fact that since speech articulation
is much slower than thought, only a minute proportion of arising thoughts can
be verbalized during the process, and, more generally in introspection, the
risks of interference between the actual thoughts which arose during the
process and previously and post-process activated emotions and experience.
Heine, Carmen. Herausforderung Hypertextübersetzung. 17-39.
Ladmiral, Jean-René.
Littera enim occidit, Spiritus autem vivificat. (In French). 41-63.
* In his special style, the author attacks foreignization in translation and pleads for domestication
as the only acceptable option.
Simmonaes, Ingrid. Zum ‘Zweck’
im Recht und in der Übersetzungswissenschaft. 65-78.
Stolze, Radegundis. Phänomenologie und Rhetorik in der Translation. 79-103.
Van Vaerenberg, Leona. ‘Covert’, ‘instrumentell’, ‘interlingual
deskripriv’. Der Stellenwert der multilingualen
Textredaktion in Theorie und Praxis des Translation. 105-128.
Van de Velde, Marc. Der fliegende Holländer. Das Verb-Frame ‘fly’ im Englischen, im Niederländischen und im Deutschen.
129-147.
Zybatow, Lew. Translationswissenschaft: Gegenstand – Methodologie –
Theoriebildung. 149-172.
Ahrens, Barbara. Structure und Prominence in Simultanverdolmetschungen. 175-194.
* About intonation. Will be reviewed in the
CIRIN Bulletin.
Albl-Mikasa, Michaela.
Reduction and expansion in notation texts. 195-214.
* About note-taking in consecutive
interpreting. Will be reviewed in the CIRIN Bulletin.
Dam, Helle & Jan Engberg. Assessing accuracy in consecutive interpreting: a comparison of
semantic network analyses and intuitive assessments. 215-234.
* Will be reviewed in the CIRIN Bulletin.
Hempel, Karl Gerhard. Adressatenbezug und Expliziertheit: zur
Übersetzung italienischer Bedienungsanleitungen. 235-252.
* A
linguistic analysis of user’s notices in Italian and a discussion of their corresponding
translations into German. The author reaches the conclusion that on the whole,
Italian user’s notices tend to be rather LSP-like, explicit, impersonal and
give the impression of being very official, whereas German translations tend to
be simpler and more personal.
Kalina, Sylvia. Zur
Dokumentation von Maβnahmen der Qualitätssicherung beim
Konsekutivdolmetschen. 253-268.
* Related
to the practice of consecutive interpreting. Will be reviewed in the CIRIN
Bulletin.
Lange, Winfried. Strategien bei Vermittlung und Erwerb von
Fachübersetzerkompetenzen in durchgängiger Projektarbeit. 269-285.
* Reflections on the role of translation
projects in translator training.
Link, Lisa. Linguistic analysis of computer-mediated
communication in online translator training. 287-294.
Sergo, Laura & Gisela Thome. Mittel zur Sicherung der Verständlichkeit von Übersetzungen. 295-319.
Albrecht, Jörn. ‚Rationalismus’ und ‚Empirismus’ in der lexialischen Seman tik. Was kann die Übersetzungswissenschaft damit anfangen?
Floros, Giorgos. Towards establishing the notion of idioculture in texts. 335-347.
Gerzymisch-Arbogast, Heidrun, Jan Kunold,
Dorothee Rothfuβ-Bastian. Coherence, Theme/Rheme, Isotopy: Complementary
Concepts in Text and Translation. 349-370.
* An interesting text-linguistic paper about
the concepts of coherence, theme/rheme and isotopy. This reviewer does not claim to have understood
the concepts fully and is only offering a few thoughts here to draw the
interest of readers to this and other texts on the topic. All three concepts
refer to the relation between parts of a text and the text as a whole and to a
relationship between the author of a text, the text and the text’s receiver
which depends on explicit linguistic cues as well as on extra-linguistic
knowledge and inferences. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of these concepts
for empirical research is its potential for analyzing texts through semantic
networks and comparing source texts and target texts through the Relatext and Relatra methods
developed by Mudersbach and Gerzymisch
Arbogast. In these semantic networks, there are
arguments, corresponding to nouns and noun-line entities, links between them -
often through verbs - which form relations. These are placed in (circumstancial) indicators about time, place and
perspective. Texts can be mapped as networks based on linguistically explicit
arguments, relators and indicators. These networks
can thus indicate - inter alia - what inferences are
required for coherence to be established and where, and could be useful to
identify language- and culture-specific differences between source texts and
target texts.
Rothkegel, Annely. Textrepresentationen im Übersetzungsprozess. 371-382.
Schreiber, Michael. A Prototypical Model of Translation Types.
383-390.
Schubert, Klaus. Kultur, Translation, Fachkommunikation.
391-409.
INTRODUCING
AN IRANIAN TS JOURNAL
Motarjem/Translation Studies. An Iranian translation journal, partly in
English, partly in Persian. It contains articles about the usual topics in TS,
including both translation and interpreting. Many are illustrated with examples
from translation into or from Persian, and some relate directly to translation
to and from Persian. Below is a (non-comprehensive) list of topics taken up in
the 43 issues published so far: Ideology and power in translation, Neologisms, Mutlimedia translation, Walter
Benjamin, Corpora in
translation, Cohesive devices, Machine translation, Derrida, News translation,
Professional translators’ attitudes,
Translation and history, Stylistic
equivalence, Quality
assessment in interpreting, Bilingualism, Translation of religious texts, Intercultural issues, Lexicography in Iran, Translation and linguistics, Translatability, The translation of poetry, Anticipation in interpreting.
The lists of references include Western TS authors and show that Iranian
authors are in touch with the world of TS. For readers of Persian, Motarjem has a
website: http://www.magiran.com/magtoc.asp?mgDir=motarjem, where tables of contents of
individual issues can be found. (DG, with acknowledgments to Esmaeil Moghaddam for providing
initial information)
ARTICLES
Becker,
Susanne. 2006. Welche Kompetenzen werden im Universitären
Übersetzungsunterricht vermittelt? Ergebnisse einer qualitativen empirisch-vergleichenden Studie zu Russland und
Deutschland. In T. Serowa (ed.) Theory
and practice of translation and interpreter training. 77-84.
* Das Ziel des
Übersetzungsunterrichts ist es, die Studierenden zu professionellen Übersetzern
auszubilden. Wie kann jedoch dieses Ziel erreicht werden? Neben Faktoren wie
Lehrstoff, Lehrmaterial, Textauswahl etc. bezieht sich die Frage auf die
Vermittlung übersetzerischer Kompetenz. In meinem Beitrag gebe ich gestützt auf
die Literatur eine Zusammenfassung, was wir unter übersetzerischer Kompetenz
verstehen, aus welchen Teilkompetenzen sie besteht und wie sie im Unterricht
vermittelt werden kann. Im zweiten Teil meines Beitrags stelle ich die
Ergebnisse einer empirischen Studie zum Übersetzungsunterricht an russischen
und deutschen Universitäten dar. Der Fokus meiner Untersuchung liegt auf der
Vermittlung übersetzerischer Kompetenz an den unterschiedlichen Universitäten
und deren Vergleich. (EA)
Choi, Jungwha.
Hatim, Basil. 2006.
Relevance as Effort and Reward: A translation and interpreting perspective. Forum
4:2. 25-40.
* An
explanation of principles of Relevance theory made understandable to the
layperson. One interesting point Hatim makes is that
in Arabic, listeners are expected to make most of the effort of making sense of
the words of the speaker, while in English, the burden falls mostly on the
speaker. A similar point could be made for Japanese, insofar as in Japanese,
listeners are culturally expected to make efforts to understand the speaker who
is not expected to make his/her message very explicit. If this is true, this
pragmatic difference between source and target languages can be a source of
language-specific difficulties for interpreters when interpreting from say
Japanese or Arabic into English or French.
Lee, Hyang. 2006. Translator Training: Beyond the dichotomy of theory vs.
practice. Forum 4:2. 41-51.
* In
this essay, Lee stresses the hostility of many translation practitioners
towards theory and pleads in favour of its presence in training. An interesting
distinction she makes, quoting Shuttleworth, defines
theory as a conceptual entity with explanatory and predictive power, and
theorizing, which refers to reflection and discussion about translational
phenomena encountered in the field or class. Lee argues that the students’
reluctance toward theory is due to the fact that abstract concepts have not
helped the solve practical problems.
Lee, Sangwon. 2006. What Readers Want – Translation Norms for Published Books in
* The
author seeks to identify norms from online comments made by readers on
translations and posted on a number of websites, including publishers’
websites. The actual work done is categorization of comments and ranking of
categories by numbers rather than extraction of norms from these comments.
Minacori-Vibert,
Patricia. 2006. L’évaluation en traduction pédagogique, technique et
scientifique : deuxième partie. Forum 4:2.
113-139.
* From the field, an attempt by a translation
instructor to classify translation students’ errors and construct a marking
scheme.
Tipton, Rebecca. 2006.
Making Sense of it All. Public Service Interpreters as reflec(x)tive practitioners? Forum 4:2.139-162.
* On the
potential benefits of reflective practice to public service interpreters.
Viaggio, Sergio. 2006. Translation,
Interlingual Mediation and the Elusive Chimera of
Equivalence. Forum 4:2.163-190.