Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A: Translation ( ):
B: Interpretation ( ):
1. Simultaneous and consecutive (conference) interpreting:
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
Strengths of translation
- overcoming limitations
- Translation facilitates communication across cultures ()
Limitations of translation:
Limitations of translation:
-A text can only be fully understood against the cultural context in
which the text is produced
-Therefore, translating process is not the contact of two languages but
also the contact of two cultures
- Conventionalisation of meaning through languages within a
particular culture is important (nativise the ideas)
- e.g French translation of Harry Potter (considering cultural differences)
Source text:
Now, yer mum an dad were as good a witch an wizard as I ever knew.
Head Boy an Girl at Hogwarts in their day! (45)
Target text
...Ton pre et ta mre taient dexcellent sorciers. Toujours premiers de la
classe Poudlard, lpoque ou ils taient tudiants! (60)
Back translation:
Your father and your mother were excellent wizards. Always top of the
class at Hogwarts, at the time when they were students!
Limitations of translation
1. How do you translate culture in spoken communication?
a. Read Activity 7.8, if you were the interpreter, what would you say,
will you explain the context in addition to interpreting (visibility of
translators?
b. Many Arabic expressions reflect religious nature, should
interpreters translate terms word for word (literal translation)?
- Interpreters consider the context of communication, they may not
translate every word, they translate the meaning (free translation)
- Some may think that free translation is different from the original
- Translation is not context-free
Limitations of translation
In Reading B: Reframing conflict in translation by Mona Baker
-The writer, Mona Baker investigates translation for the Arabic
documentary entitled Jenin Jenin
- The documentary has been translated into many languages, including
English (aiming at American audience)
-Mona Baker concludes that political purposes / background of
translators may affect how they translate the source text (e.g word
choice) in order to reframe the same event in another language
(dominance and resistance)
- In this sense, translation is not neutral
Some more limitations of translation:
- Untranslatability of vocabulary and grammar (e.g. English vs Russian)
[Lack of fit between langauges]
- Something of the spirit of the original languages is lost in translation
- Linguistic relativity hypothesis: a language determines a unique way of
seeing the world (Pavlenko, 2005)