Translation Studies

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Translation Studies

• 12. Translation into the second language
• Krisztina Károly, Spring, 2006
• Source Campbell, 1998

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Aim of book

• to explore how individuals develop the
  competence to translate into a second language,
  and to show that a key aspect textual
  competence is developed in a systematic way.
  (p.2)
• Importance of a translator-centered view on
  translation (focus on process the translator in
  context)

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Problems in translation to L2 are related to

• second language acquisition (acquisition of L2
  skills and strategies, L development)
• interlanguage (output a stage in L acquisition)
• organization of L above the sentence level (DA
  production of stylistically authentic texts
  textual skills in L2)
• levels of L competence (translation standards)

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Recent studies on translation competence (TC)

• Toury (1984) bilinguals have an innate
  translation competence comprising bilingual and
  interlingual ability as well as transfer
  competence (pp.189-190)
• Bell (1991) ideal bilingual competence
  expert system communicative competence
  (Canale and Swain, 1980 grammatical,
  sociolinguistic, discourse, strategic)
• Kiraly (1990) stresses the importance of the
  process of second language acquisition in
  teaching translation into FLs

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Recent studies cont.

• Hewson and Martin (1991) acquired
  interlinguistic competence (comp. in 2 Ls and 2
  cultures) dissimilative competence
  transferred competence (translation
  auxiliaries)
• Nord (1992) competence of text reception and
  analysis, research competence, transfer
  competence, competence of text production,
  competence of translation quality assessment,
  linguistic and cultural competence (both on the
  source and target side) ? text-analytical
  perspective
• Pym (1992) ability to generate a target-text
  series select only one target text from this
  series as a replacement of source text for a
  specific purpose and reader ? behavioral
  perspective

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Possible approaches to conceptualizing TC
(depending on purpose)

• psychological modeling of the T process
  (inferring mental constructs from empirical data
  TAP at different levels of translator ability
  or longitudinally in student translators) ? focus
  on translator, text, readers
• translation quality assessment (the quality of
  the translated text is a reflection of the
  translators competence) ? focus on text, readers
  and the relationship of the two
• translation pedagogy (importance of
  discourse/translation analysis, intertextuality,
  interference, lack of student-centered view) ?
  focus on theories of teaching and learning

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Translation into the second language (vs. first
language)

• TC in an interlanguage framework (following
  Selinker, 1992 and Larsen-Freeman and Long, 1991)
• contrastive analysis
• error analysis
• performance analysis
• discourse analysis

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Purpose of a pedagogical model of TC

• identify underlying components of TC to aid
  curricula
• describe developmental pathway taken in learning
  how to translate to aid sequencing of curricula
• include means for describing quality differences
  between translations to aid the development of
  assessment techniques

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Towards a model of translation competence (into
L2) ? based on empirical research

• 3 components in Campbells (1998) model

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3 components in Campbells (1998) model cont.

• (1) TL textual competence (the ability to
  manipulate the genre potential of the TL, by
  deploying grammar and lexis above the sentence
  level)
• - substrandard
• - pretextual
• - textual

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3 components in Campbells (1998) model cont.

• (2) Disposition (individual characteristics of
  the translator, unrelated to L competence)
• - risk-taking vs. prudent
• - persistent vs. capitulating

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3 components in Campbells (1998) model cont.

• (3) Monitoring competence
• - low awareness of quality of output ?
  ineffective editing strategies
• - high awareness of quality of output ? effective
  editing strategies

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Characteristics of the model

• shows that TC is divisible into components
  shows the relative independence of the components
• developmental dimension (in learning how to
  translate) only the textual competence component
  can be considered developmentally!
• describes differences between translators ? can
  be used in assessment of translation/translator
  quality