Translation history (0)

Summary
• Early history of translation studies – Cicero and St. Jerome (what did they do/how/why are they relevant to translation studies?)
St. Jerome – Greek scholar, did some translation work . Lived during the 4th century . Jerome is best known as the translator of the Bible into Latin . A previous version (now called the Old Latin) existed, but Jerome's version far surpassed it in scholarship and in literary quality. Jerome was well versed in classical Latin (as well as Greek and Hebrew), but deliberately translated the Bible into the style of Latin that was actually spoken and written by the majority of persons in his own time. This kind of Latin is known as Vulgate Latin ( meaning the Latin of the common people), and accordingly Jerome's translation is called the Vulgate.
Cicero – Lived during the 1st century BC. Roman politician, philosopher & translator. Theory ‘‘word-for-word’’ & ‘‘ sense -for-sense’’.
• Martin Luther – his role in the history of translation studies.
Lived during the 15th century. He was a priest , theologian & translator. During that time, the Bible’s were only available in either Latin or Hebrew, which made it very difficult for common people to understand . He came out with a radical plan to translate the Bible into local languages (the first language was German – translated by Martin Luther). This inspired many other translators during that period .
• What happened in the 19th and 20th century in translation studies? When and who created the term ‘translation studies’?
Translation Studies – James S. Holmes - 1972
Ferdinand de Saussure – Lived during the 19th and 20th century. He was a Swiss linguist and a semiotician. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics and one of two major fathers (together with Charles Sanders Peirce ) of semiotics/semiology. Saussure's most influential work, Course in General Linguistics (Cours de linguistique générale), was published posthumously in 1916 by former students Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye on the basis of notes taken from Saussure's lectures in Geneva. The Course became one of the seminal linguistics works of the 20th century, not primarily for the content (many of the ideas had been anticipated in the works of other 20th century linguists), but rather for the innovative approach that Saussure applied in discussing linguistic phenomena. Saussure is one of the founding fathers of semiotics, which he called semiology. His concept of the sign / signifier /signified/referent forms the core of the field . Equally crucial , although often overlooked or misapplied, is the dimension of the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes of linguistic description.
Saussure's 'theory of the sign' defined a sign as being made up of the matched pair of signifier and signified.
Signifier
The signifier is the pointing finger, the word, the sound - image .
A word is simply a jumble of letters. The pointing finger is not the star . It is in the interpretation of the signifier that meaning is created.
Signified
The signified is the concept, the meaning, the thing indicated by the signifier. It need not be a ' real object' but is some referent to which the signifier refers.
The thing signified is created in the perceiver and is internal to them . Whilst we share concepts, we do so via signifiers.
Whilst the signifier is more stable, the signified varies between people and contexts.
The signified does stabilize with habit , as the signifier cues thoughts and images.
Signifier + signified = sign
• Onomatopoeic words ( examples )
Argh, achoo, bang, bark , meow, moo…
• Roman Jakobson – intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic translation. Problems in telling the difference between intra and interlingual translation ( social and regional language varieties ).
Interpretation of a verbal sign according to Roman Jakobson can happen in three ways :
Intralingual-( within )- Eng-Eng/Fin-Fin/Est-Est
Interlingual-(between)- Est-Eng/Rus-Ger
Intersemiotic-(between)- Sound-Words/Words-Sound. F.e.-in movies *phone ringing*
Problems:
Dialects/Regional varieties-
When translating: Mainstream Eng. vs Jamaican Eng., then you could translate MS Eng to MS Est, and Jamaican Eng into a language variety with a similar (social) role.
Social class -
RP-received pronunciation -(aka posh lang.)
When translating: RP vs lower class Eng, then you could translate RP using complicated words, and lower class Eng, using limited vocabulary .
• Hatim and Munday – what is translation according to these two men? Why is this not quite enough nowadays ?
1. Process of transferring written text from SL to TL( done by a translator)
2.The written product of the process in No.1
3. Mental , social, linguistic etc phenomenon related to the written product in No.2
It is not quite enough nowadays , because translating is not only about written product. For example, translating to deaf people via sign language, or dubbing (animated) movies and shows to the local language
• Context – definition (how may it vary ). Why we need it (3 reasons) + be able to bring and identify examples.
How translators benefit from it?
1. Resolve ambiguity
2. Provide referents to thus, then, he, it , that.
3. Make sense of elliptical sentences (shortened form of sentence)
Example:
A: Where are you going ?
B: To school (I’m going to school) – elliptical
A: Ready ?
B: Ready

• Immidiate words
  
• Paragraph
  
• The entire text
  

(wtf?)
• Register – language user and language use. Language user – time, region and society (what do these notions mean and what are some problems associated to them?); language use – tenor , mode and domain (what do these notions mean and what are some problems associated to them?).
Register-analysis
Language user vs. language use – the two main parameters of language change .
Variability in the language user is further defined by three broad parameters:
1-Time- (when?) the time when the speaker or the writer lived. For example, if you were to translate a Dickens book from english to russian , you could use the same language as did Dostoyevsky, because they lived at the same time (19th century)
2-Region- The second parameter that defines the language user is region. Region refers to where the author /speaker (sometimes character ) is from. May be on a broader scale – Middle East, Western world; but also narrower – Germany , Latvia, Minnesota ; and even narrower – Conrwall, London, Pärnu, etc.
Problems related to region (similar to the problems covered in previous lessons):
How to deal with a situation, where all or part of a source text is written in a regional language? This involves questions along the lines of – if there is character in an Estonian novel that speaks in Saaremaa language variety, how should one transfer that into another language? What is the equivalent of Saaremaa language variety in English? Here the translator has to think about cultural issues as well – what it means to be from Saaremaa? Is it a rural ( country ) area? Do Estonians from the mainland have any bad feelings towards people from Saaremaa? Do they make fun of them? And after answering these and many other questions, the translator has to find a dialect in English that has about the same connotations that the Saare language variety has for the Estonian language.
3-And society (social class). - The last parameter that defines the language user is social class. A century or so ago this notion was fairly straightforward, as several Western languages had accepted standard forms. For instance in England the language of the ‘educated middle classes ’ was considered the norm. Thus, it was the only language variety that really appeared in written texts and it was not uncommon that differences in the SL were levelled out into the standard language variety in English. A similar phenomenon in Estonia could be the use of German in official correspondence and writing in earlier centuries . However , as time has gone by, such notions of an accepted class related norm in languages has become subject of criticism. People are considered more equal and thus no language variety can be considered better than another.
Sometimes ideology may also come into play with regard to the language of different social classes. For instance, in the target culture, the ruling ideology might not permit the use of any other language variety in literature than the standard dialect.
The questions regarding this topic have also been touched upon earlier in the lessons: how is one to translate the language of someone of the lower classes in England into Estonian? Since we don’t have social classes, could lower class English just be translated into the language of the less educated? Similar examples could also be brought with regard to the language of smaller social groupings – slave language, IT people, lawyers, single mothers, etc. Some languages might not have any similar social/cultural group language variety that the SL uses.
Language use:
Tenor- Tenor is used to describe the relationship of the text producer to the text receiver – whether the relationship is close (e.g. between friends) or is there social distance (e.g. between professor and student , boss and employer , or child and parent in some societies). A text will usually have many elements that help us determine the different aspects of tenor, such as the (1) level of formality of the text (how formal it is – very formal, everyday speech , slang , etc.), (2) social distance ( determined by society – such terms as Miss , Mr, nicknames, use of last or first names , etc. help us understand how close or distant a relationship is, and (3) politeness between the speaker and the addressee (use of the formal ‘teie’ in Estonian; politeness phrases , such as ‘ please ’, ‘could’, ‘ shall ’, ‘would you mind’, etc.).
Mode- The second sub-parameter of language use is mode (moodus/vahend); in essence, this is the choice between speaking and writing. Some languages might have words that are almost exclusively used in either written or spoken language and to use them in the other context would make the text seem badly constructed (an example in English could be the use of internet slang in verbal speech – if one were to say lmao , wtf, lol, brb, etc. it probably sounds quite odd and they are better left for written speech). Usually translators don’t really come into contact with translating spoken language and that is more the field of interpreters, however plays or films that are to be performed or dubbed should be translated so that the target text is actually speakable.
And domain- The last sub-parameter of language use is domain – in its simplest explanation it refers to the type of language usually used within a particular field. For instance, we would probably not write about nuclear physics using taboo language or write a children ’s book using overly official and complicated language; nor would we use children’s language when compiling a legal contract or filing an official complaint ; a textbook would probably sound equally strange , were it written in slang.
• Levels of formality and social distance. Be able to list the different levels of formality and identify the approximate level of formality of an example sentence. What does it mean that people are socially more close or distant? How is this indicated in speech? How is politeness indicated in speech?
Officialese – The consumption of any nutriments whatsoever is categorically prohibited in this establishment.
Official – The consumption of nutriments is prohibited.
Formal – You are requested not to consume food in this establishment.
Neutral – Eating is not allowed here.
Informal – Please don't eat here.
Colloquial – You can't feed your face here.
Slang – Lay off the nosh.
Taboo – Lay off the bloody nosh.
What actually determined the degree of distance and formality may be social status (people from lower statuses will address those at a higher status differently than they would someone on the same level as them) or the authority that comes with knowledge (scientific texts may use extremely formal and rigid language for instance). But social distance may also be decided based on available space (literally the space you have to print the translation – some things will sound more distant and less warm; if you’re angry and you only speak in single word sentences, you increase the distance between you and the person you are speaking to). For instance, in English, the standard text on a medicine container is ‘If symptoms persist consult your doctor ’, which is quite rigid and unfriendly sounding, however, if there is more space, a more friendlier version may be printed instead ‘If symptoms do not go away , talk to your doctor about it’.
• What are elliptical sentences? Be able to identify ellipsis.
Ellipsis means leaving something out. Elliptical sentence is a shorter form of sentence which some words have been omitted, but it retains the same meaning. It is used so that we can avoid unnecessary repeated words.
For exmp: A: Where are you going?  B: To school. (= I am going to school.)
  •  A: Ready? (= Are you ready?) B: Yes, I am. (= Yes, I am ready.)