Distribution and translation

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tong King Lee

Abstract Translation has traditionally been viewed as a branch of applied linguistics. This has changed drastically in recent decades, which have witnessed translation studies growing as a field beyond, and sometimes against, applied linguistics. This paper is an attempt to think translation back into applied linguistics by reconceptualizing translation through the notions of distributed language, semiotic repertoire, and assemblage. It argues that: (a) embedded within a larger textual-media ecology, translation is enacted through dialogical interaction among the persons, texts, technologies, platforms, institutions, and traditions operating within that ecology; (b) what we call translations are second-order constructs, or relatively stable formations of signs abstracted from the processual flux of translating on the first-order; (c) translation is not just about moving a work from one discrete language system across to another, but about distributing it through semiotic repertoires; (d) by orchestrating resources performatively, translations are not just interventions in the target language and culture, but are transformative of the entire translingual and multimodal space (discursive, interpretive, material) surrounding a work. The paper argues that distributed thinking helps us de-fetishize translation as an object of study and reimagine translators as partaking of a creative network of production alongside other human and non-human agents.

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 79-99
Author(s):  
Brian Mossop

This semi-autobiographical article reflects on the discipline known as Translation Studies from the point of view of the author, who was a full-time Canadian government translator from 1974 to 2014, but also taught and wrote about translation. The narrative begins with the emergence of Translation Studies in Canada and in Europe and continues through the present neoliberal era, with reflection on a variety of topics including the English name of the discipline, the lack of definition of an object of study, the original role of the journal Meta, and the notion of translation as applied linguistics. The last section considers two fictive scenarios in which Translation Studies does not emerge, and translation is studied, right from the start, in ways much more closely linked to the translation profession, with a focus on translators rather than translations, and therefore on translational production rather than the analysis of completed translations.


Author(s):  
Isabel García Izquierdo ◽  
Vicent Montalt i Resurrecció

When we translate, we do so for specific communicative situations and purposes; that is, we write translations that will fulfil the needs and conventions of specific textual genres in the target language and culture. The aim of this article, which draws on data and experience from the GENTT project, is to explore the relationship between translation and genre theory in order to understand better how translators are involved in interlinguistic and intercultural communication.Genre theory is attractive to Translation Studies because it links the micro level of writing and text to the macro level of discourse and context, unites process with product and integrates the cognitive, social and profes¬sional approaches to translation. Thus, the notion of genre brings together critical elements in translation such as the reader ’s profile, expectations and preferences; the communicative situation and purpose; and the socio-cultural context. In order to understand better how translators are involved in interlinguistic and intercultural communication, we suggest a remodelling of translation in which the target genre plays a central role.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel A. Jiménez-Crespo

In the midst of a shift from paper to digital texts, web localization represents one of the fastest growing sectors in the translation industry. In this paper, I will argue that Translation Studies (TS) has not devoted enough attention to this phenomenon, partly due to the lack of definition and delimitation of the object of study, and partly due to the quickly evolving intersection of technology, digital text and novel forms of language and culture mediation. In order to overcome this situation and promote new research in this area, this paper extends the prototype approach advocated by Halverson (1999, 2002) to the definition of web localization. This type of approach can help bridge the gap between industry and TS disciplines, providing a framework to classify exemplars of web-mediated communication more or less at the core of the study of web localization phenomena. The main features that this paper will propose as prototypical features of web localization in relation to other translational phenomena are: (1) that the object of the process is web digital genres (i.e. corporate websites, social networking sites, institutional sites), and that (2) texts are digital and hyperlinked. The proposed web genre classification by Jimenez-Crespo (2013a) will be reviewed as a potential foundation to identify exemplars of the web localization prototype.


Author(s):  
Jerzy Żmudzki

The aim of this paper is to show what sort of translation problems appear in the adjective-substantive collocations in Polish and German. A special class of collocations is represented by lexicalised and idiomatised syntagmas. These units include characteristic attributive perspectives specified by the two languages and the two culture communities. This phenomeneon refers to conventional valuing, attributions and métaphorisations of concepts represented in substantives used. In this way collocations form and fix the cultural profiles of reality. Because of that they can be regarded as cognitive formulas which need to be reprofiled in a concrete translation process through their projection on the target language and culture. As a result of these cognitive and linguistic operations the translator identifies the convergences and divergences as determined by the language system and the text between both the two languages. He secondly constructs equivalent attributive profile of the concept transferred into the target text, thus guaranteeing the reciprocity of perspectives between both of the texts. The essay classifies the cases and types of disparities between Polish and German adjeck-tive-substantive collocations, showing how they can be reprofiled according to linguistic and cultural requirements of the target text. This class of translation problems is only a subfield of the larger domain, but the main mechanism of the important translation transfer can be already demonstrated and exemplified basing on these specific translation units.


Author(s):  
Bálint Szele

This paper presents a complex study highlighting English and American cultural stories and makes an attempt at determining to what extent these cultural stories are known among students of English and Translation Studies in Hungary. The first stage of the research was a process of finding out about previous research and then selecting British and American cultural items that might be relevant for Hungarian students. These are presented as a list in the introduction. Nine instances have been singled out for further analysis in this paper, in the second section of which the background of the cultural stories is described in detail. The third section offers information about a survey conducted among a group of students of English and Translation Studies, underlining the need for intercultural education in both courses. The first empirical results of a pilot survey were presented during a HUSSE conference in Veszprém (14th Biennial HUSSE Conference, University of Pannonia, Veszprém, 31 January – 2 February 2019), the title of the forthcoming paper is “I can drink with any tinker in his own language” – Target Language Culture in EFL at Different Levels of Teaching. More information including students’ personal insights can be found on the beliefs and perceptions of students of English about language and culture in a previous paper (Szele 2019).


2021 ◽  
pp. 238-242
Author(s):  
Марія Хар ◽  
Наталія Гриців

This research is focused on a detailed analysis of advertising slogans of well-known food brands, linguistic features of slogans, translation strategies, linguistic shifts applied and difficulties translators face in the process of translating. The relevance of the topic is determined by the need to determine the features of the translation of advertising slogans, the influence of cultural factors on the translation of advertising slogans, the influence of verbal and nonverbal components of advertising on its perception by the target audience. For the study, 50 advertising slogans of various food companies were carried out. Features and strategies of translation of advertising slogans, lexical-grammatical, stylistic and other transformations applied to the target text are established. According to Catford's classification, the main dominant category of linguistic transformations is the transformation of sentence structure, which is used in the translation of approximately 38% of advertising slogans. Changes in rank and changes within the language system of the target language are 23% and 27%, respectively, and changes in grammatical classes of words – 12%. This work has theoretical value in terms of studying unique features of the discourse of advertising and peculiarities of translation of advertising slogans, and practical value for use of verbal and nonverbal elements of advertising as a means of influencing consumers.


1997 ◽  
Vol 36 (04/05) ◽  
pp. 315-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Momose ◽  
K. Komiya ◽  
A. Uchiyama

Abstract:The relationship between chromatically modulated stimuli and visual evoked potentials (VEPs) was considered. VEPs of normal subjects elicited by chromatically modulated stimuli were measured under several color adaptations, and their binary kernels were estimated. Up to the second-order, binary kernels obtained from VEPs were so characteristic that the VEP-chromatic modulation system showed second-order nonlinearity. First-order binary kernels depended on the color of the stimulus and adaptation, whereas second-order kernels showed almost no difference. This result indicates that the waveforms of first-order binary kernels reflect perceived color (hue). This supports the suggestion that kernels of VEPs include color responses, and could be used as a probe with which to examine the color visual system.


Author(s):  
Melati Desa

ABSTRACT   : Language and culture influences each other and its effect is reflected in not only the way humans think, but could also be seen in a full load of figurative elements in creative writing, such as metaphors. Thus, the report examines the aspects of the transfer of meaning in the live metaphors in Haru No Yuki, literary Japanese texts written by Yukio Mishima (1925 – 1970) translated to Malay by Muhammad Haji Salleh (1993) as Salju Musim Bunga published by Penataran Ilmu. This report studies on the equivalence of the meaning of translated live metaphors from the source text to the target text. From the study of the equivalence of meaning can be evaluated that, if there is any type of losses of meaning in form of under translation, over translation or wrong translation. The retention of live metaphors in the target text produced an ideal translation. Universal live metaphors maintained by the translator, this approach produced an ideal translation in form of meaning and accepted by the culture and speakers of the target language. The conclusion of this report shows that, one of the factors in producing quality translations is to understand the elements of the original cultural metaphors contained in the source text. Keywords: live metaphor, personification, ideal translation, equivalence of meaning ABSTRAK         : Bahasa dan budaya saling mempengaruhi dan kesannya dapat dilihat bukan sahaja dalam cara manusia berpikir malah dalam penulisan kreatif yang memuatkan unsur figuratif, metafora misalnya. Justeru, kajian ini meneliti aspek pemindahan makna dalam terjemahan metafora hidup dan personifikasi yang terdapat dalam teks kesusasteraan Jepun, Haru No Yuki hasil penulisan Yukio Mishima (1925 – 1970) diterjemahkan oleh Muhammad Haji Salleh (1993) menjadi Salju Musim Bunga (SMB) terbitan Penataran Ilmu. Kertas kerja ini mengkaji keselarasan makna terjemahan metafora hidup dan personifikasi daripada teks sumber kepada teks sasaran. Daripada kajian keselarasan makna dapat dinilai sama ada berlaku peleburan makna metafora apabila terhasilnya terjemahan kurang, terjemahan lebih atau terjemahan salah. Kaedah pengekalan metafora hidup dalam teks sasaran didapati menghasilkan terjemahan ideal. Metafora hidup yang bersifat universal dikekalkan oleh penterjemah, pendekatan ini menghasilkan terjemahan ideal dari sudut makna dan diterima oleh budaya dan penutur bahasa sasaran. Sebagai kesimpulan, kajian ini menunjukkan bahawa, salah satu faktor dalam usaha untuk menghasilkan terjemahan bermutu adalah dengan memahami unsur metafora budaya asal teks sumber.   Kata kunci : metafora hidup, personifikasi, terjemahan ideal, persamaan makna


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-30
Author(s):  
Kelly James Clark

In Branden Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican’s challenging and provocative essay, we hear a considerably longer, more scholarly and less melodic rendition of John Lennon’s catchy tune—without religion, or at least without first-order supernaturalisms (the kinds of religion we find in the world), there’d be significantly less intra-group violence. First-order supernaturalist beliefs, as defined by Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican (hereafter M&M), are “beliefs that claim unique authority for some particular religious tradition in preference to all others” (3). According to M&M, first-order supernaturalist beliefs are exclusivist, dogmatic, empirically unsupported, and irrational. Moreover, again according to M&M, we have perfectly natural explanations of the causes that underlie such beliefs (they seem to conceive of such natural explanations as debunking explanations). They then make a case for second-order supernaturalism, “which maintains that the universe in general, and the religious sensitivities of humanity in particular, have been formed by supernatural powers working through natural processes” (3). Second-order supernaturalism is a kind of theism, more closely akin to deism than, say, Christianity or Buddhism. It is, as such, universal (according to contemporary psychology of religion), empirically supported (according to philosophy in the form of the Fine-Tuning Argument), and beneficial (and so justified pragmatically). With respect to its pragmatic value, second-order supernaturalism, according to M&M, gets the good(s) of religion (cooperation, trust, etc) without its bad(s) (conflict and violence). Second-order supernaturalism is thus rational (and possibly true) and inconducive to violence. In this paper, I will examine just one small but important part of M&M’s argument: the claim that (first-order) religion is a primary motivator of violence and that its elimination would eliminate or curtail a great deal of violence in the world. Imagine, they say, no religion, too.Janusz Salamon offers a friendly extension or clarification of M&M’s second-order theism, one that I think, with emendations, has promise. He argues that the core of first-order religions, the belief that Ultimate Reality is the Ultimate Good (agatheism), is rational (agreeing that their particular claims are not) and, if widely conceded and endorsed by adherents of first-order religions, would reduce conflict in the world.While I favor the virtue of intellectual humility endorsed in both papers, I will argue contra M&M that (a) belief in first-order religion is not a primary motivator of conflict and violence (and so eliminating first-order religion won’t reduce violence). Second, partly contra Salamon, who I think is half right (but not half wrong), I will argue that (b) the religious resources for compassion can and should come from within both the particular (often exclusivist) and the universal (agatheistic) aspects of religious beliefs. Finally, I will argue that (c) both are guilty, as I am, of the philosopher’s obsession with belief. 


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