Problem-solving and text-processing

READER

Text production and text-reception constitute the major part of the process of human communication and, as such, we are dealing not with one text but with two: the writer’s text and the reader’s.

The context of writing and reading differs as between writer and reader (participants) who are different individuals with different experiences of life and intentions when engaged in the task of text-processing; they have differing goals (aims, general and particular) and for each the experience will have different outcomes (ends); results, intended or otherwise. Further, the way in which the writer planned for the text to be taken (key) - the tenor (зміст, значення) of the discourse - may differ from the way in which it is actually taken by the reader; what was entertaining may be felt to be flippant and annoying by the reader.

Text-processing is a problematic enterprise. There is a particular problem: in principle, processing could go on forever, there is no definitive reading of a text nor perfect rendering of ideals in written form (nor, therefore, a “perfect” translation).

Two principles: “analogy (things will tend to be as they were before) and local interpretation (if there is a change, assume it is minimal) form the basis of the assumption of coherence in our experience of life in general, hence in our experience of discourse as well” (Brown and Gule, 1983, 67).

The model, in its present form suggests 1)that there are five stages involved in text-processing and 2) that these five stages are gone through, irrespective of whether the text is being received (analyzed and read) or produced (synthesized and written); the difference being the direction of the processing.

A modification needs to be made to the apparent unidirectional processing in each case: bottom-up for reception and top-down for production. We envisage both processes as operating in both directions - from data to concept and concepts to data.

TEXT PROCESSING

2. Synthesis: writing. Strategies and tactics.

Three regulative principles for texts have been suggested by Ellis (1984, 61)

a) efficiency (продуктивність): the minimum expenditure of effort is required of the participants;

b) effectiveness: success in creating the conditions for attaining a goal;

c) appropriateness (відповідність): providing a balance between a) and b), i.e. between the conventional and unconventional.

Five strategies and tactics for coping with appropriate writing, as we shall see.

The process stage - by - stage from planning to actual writing:

Stage 1 - planning. At that point the writer is asking why the text is to be written, and what form the text should take.

Stage 2 - ideation (вміння сформулювати та відчути) - concerns decisions on the main ideas.

Stage 3 - development (розвиток певної системи) - takes the ideas, organizes them into a coherent framework (chapters, sections, etc.).

Stage 4 - expression (вираження ідеї) - takes the ideas and puts them into non-language-specific propositional form.

Stage 5 - parsing (граматичний розклад речення) - maps the propositional content onto the syntax through selections from the Mood systems.

Clearly, there are as many configurations of this process as there are writers and it would serve no particular purpose to try to create a set of “typical” styles.

3. Analysis: reading.

Reading, according to the model we are using, consists of essentially the same processing stages as writing but with the direction reversed, i.e. from surface text to plans and goals: parsing, concept recovery, simplification, idea recovery (getting the gist) and finally, plan recovery (realizing how to take the message of the text).

We might add that, at any point, the reader may have to reinterpret earlier clauses in the light of new information.

We presented reading and writing as using the same five-stage process - they are conceived of as mirror images of each other - and therefore take de Beaugrande’s assertion which follows to ultimately have messages for writing as well as reading to which it explicitly refers.

РОБОЧА НАВЧАЛЬНА ПРОГРАМА ДИСЦИПЛІНИ “ТЕОРІЯ ПЕРЕКЛАДУ” ДЛЯ НАПРЯМКІВ ПІДГОТОВКИ (СПЕЦІАЛЬНОСТЕЙ): 60305, 7030507.

І. ЗАГАЛЬНІ ВІДОМОСТІ

Translation is a human activity known since ancient times and an interpreter or a translator is almost the oldest of professions dating back to the biblical era and earlier. But we know now about translation almost as much or as little as our ancestors. Translation always was and still is outside the mainstream of linguistic science and philosophy. Many aspects of translation have been covered by other disciplines such as semantics, semiotics, comparative linguistics, linguistic typology, etc., but little attempt has yet been made to bring these findings together. However, it would be wrong to say that the research of translation was scarce or the results were futile. The matter is that the fundamental and experimental research of translation having covered the entire regular (“tangible”) part of the translation (i.e. regular lexical and grammatical equivalence) left out the whole area of the intuitive (“intangible”) portion that forms the basis of any good translation.

It might be easy to conclude from the above that there are vast blank areas in translation theory to be addressed by linguists and philosophers.

The translation theorists, almost without exception, have made little systematic use of the techniques and insights of contemporary linguistics and the linguists, for their part, have been at best neutral and at worst actually hostile to the notion of a theory of translation.

This state of affairs seems particularly paradoxical when we recognize the stated goal of translation: the transformation of a text originally in one language into an equivalent text in a different language retaining as far as is possible, the content of the message and the formal features and functional roles of the original text. The translation theory is to give “rules” for the creation of “correct translation” and about providing systematic and objective descriptions of the process of translation.

The essential argument rests on the following assumptions:

a) that the paradox we have been describing has arisen as a result of a fundamental misunderstanding, by both translation theorists and linguists, of what is involved in translation;

b) that this misunderstanding has led to the failure to build a theory of translation which is at all satisfactory in a theoretical or an applied since. So the task of translation theory was and is to model the process of translation, setting it particularly within a systematic model of language.

The goal of this course is 1) to outline the kinds of knowledge and skills which we believe must underlie the practical abilities of the translator and 2) to built this outline into a model of translation process and its major need - from both the theoretical and the practical points of view - is for descriptions and explanations of the process of translating.

It is for this reason that our course is divided into such parts as: Model, Meaning, Memory which in its turn are subdivided into topics such as: Perspectives on translation, Translating; Modeling the process, Word-and-sentence-meaning, Text and discourse, Text processing.

II. РОЗПОДІЛ НАВЧАЛЬНОГО ЧАСУ.

Семестр	Всього	Лекції	СРС	Семестрова атестація
				Екзамен

ІІІ. МЕТА І ЗАВДАННЯ ДИСЦИПЛІНИ.

The aim of this course is to highlight the most common theories and models by both native and foreign scientists in the field of translation in order to give students an idea of the progress modern science has made in translation research. It is also an objective of this course to help future interpreters and translators to better understand their translation routine.

The discussion of translation theories and models is accompanies by some general information on models and modeling, contains descriptions of the general principles of translation process from Western translation theorists, common and different ways of interpreting translation and translating process. It contains focus on rather different issues: an introductory discussion of the nature of translation in view of foreign scientists and the presentation of an outline model of translating. We ask the questions: 1) “What is translation and how may we best describe and explain it?” 2) ”What would a model of translating look like?” 3) “What knowledge and skills must the translator possess in order to be able to translate?” i.e. how can we specify translator competence?

This course is concerned with translation, its theory and, in particular, with proposing a new orientation to the study of translation.

IV. ТЕМАТИЧНИЙ ПЛАН.

РОЗПОДІЛ НАВЧАЛЬНОГО ЧАСУ ЗА ТЕМАМИ

This course includes 36 lecture hours of Bases of translation It is subdivided into 3 parts: Model (11 lectures); Meaning (4 lectures); Memory (2 lectures) which in its turn are subdivided into such topics as: I. Model: perspectives on translation (1-6 lectures), Translating: Modeling the process (7-11); II. Meaning: Word-meaning (12-13), Sentence-meaning (14), Text, Context and discourse (15-16); III. Memory: Text processing (17-18).

Students’ independent work (includes 45 hours) is organized in such a way that they should personally study excerpts of theoretical historical overview of translation theories of Western scientists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Translation theories of the last two hundred years need to be seen in a historical context. They bring together the dynamics of thought dialogues, and of the heated discussions concerning the impact and usefulness of translation practice.

“Theories of translation” - an Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida is proposed. In order to give students a sense of translation history, this anthology opens with Hugo Friedrich’s online of the major translation attitudes from Romans to the present.. These 21 assays crystallize some of the major ideas that have shaped translation thinking throughout the centuries. Different points of view and remarks of authors are valuable not only for their clear assessment of perspectives that have modified theories of translation in

the past, but also for summarizing early in these assays all those questions that have become the major concerns of translatiors and scholars working in the field of translation studies.

This anthology of Essays (“Theory of translation”. The university of Chicago press. Chicago and London. 1992) consists of 21 essayists and their biographies which are also of particular interest. They are:

1. Hugo Friedrich

On The Art Of Translation

2. John Dryden

On Translation

3. Arthur Schopnhauer

On Language and Words

4. Friedrich Schleiremacher

From On the Different Methods of translating

5. Wilhelm von Humboldt

From Introduction to His Translation of Agamemnon

6. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Translations

7. Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Preface to The Early Italian Poets

8. Friedrich Nietzsche

On the Problem of Translation

9. Walter Benjamin

The Task of the Translator

10.Ezra Pound

Guido’s Relations

11. José Ortega y Gasset

The Misery and the Splendor of Translation

12. Paul Valéry

Variations on the Eclogues

13. Vladimir Nabokov

Problems of Translation: Onegin in English

14. Roman Jakobson

On Linguistic Aspects of Translation

15. Octavio Paz

Translation: Literature and Letters

16. Peter Szondi

The Poetry of Constancy: Paul Celan’s Translation of Shakespeare’s Sonnet

17. Yves Bonnefoy

Translating Poetry

18. Henry Schogt

Semantic Theory and Translation Theory

19. Michael Riffaterre

Transposing Presuppositions on the Semiotics of Literary Translation

20. Jacques Derrida

From Des Tours de Babel

21. Hans Erich Nossack

Translating and Being Translated

LECTURE 1

Model. Perspectives on Translation.

Basic Approaches to Translation and Interpretation.

Main points:

1. Basic approaches to translation and interpretation.

2. Translation as intercultural communication.

LECTURE 2

Translation as a Human Activity and a Mysterious Phenomenon

Main points:

1. Translation as a human activity and a mysterious phenomenon

2. Ambiguity problem in translation.

3. Disambiguation tools.

LECTURE 3

Theory, Model, Algorithm - Differences and Common Features.

Main points:

1. Definitions of theory, model and algorithm.

2. Language modeling.

3. Translation as an object of linguistic modeling.

LECTURE 4

What is translation theory?

Main points:

1. The process of translation that creates the product.

2. Orientation towards different approaches to investigate the process of translation.

3. Requirements for a theory of translation.

LECTURE 5

Human Translation Theory

Main points:

1. The unit and elements of translation.

2. Transformational approach.

3. Denotative approach.

LECTURE 6

Human Translation Theories

Main points:

1. Communicative approach. The notion of thesaurus.

2. Distributional approach.

LECTURE 7

Translating: Modeling the process.

Main points:

1. The translator: knowledge and skills.

2. Ideal bilingual competence.

3. Expertise.

4. Communicative competence.

LECTURE 8

The process of translation.

Main points:

1. Stages of the process of translation.

2. Editing the source text.

3. Interpretation of the source text.

4. Interpretation in a new language.

5. Formulating the translated text.

6. Editing the translated text.

LECTURE 9

Types of Translation

Main points:

1. Pre-dictionary translation.

2. Formulation translation.

3. Instantaneous translation.

4. Specific skills required for interpreting “by ear” (at viva voce).

LECTURE 10

The Language of Translation

Main points:

1. The level of lexis.

2. Sentence level.

LECTURE 11

The Language of Translation

Main points:

1. Discourse level.

2. The level of variety.

3. Elaboration on vocabulary exchange as a method of studying the language of translation.

LECTURE 12

Meaning. Word-meaning.

Main points:

1. Reference theory.

2. Componential analysis.

3. Meaning postulates.

LECTURE 13

The Thesaurus.

Main points:

1. Lexical and semantic fields.

2. Denotation and connotation.

LECTURE 14

Sentence-meaning.

Main points:

1. Relations of words and sentences to one another.

2. Utterance, sentence and proposition.

LECTURE 15

Text and Discourse. Types of Context and Contextual Relationship.

Main points:

1. Text, context and discourse.

2. Levels of contextual abstraction.

3. Types of context.

4. Contextual relationships.

LECTURE 16

Standards of Textuality.

Main points:

1. Cohesion and coherence.

2. Intentionality and acceptibility.

3. Informativity, relevance and intertextuality.

LECTURE 17

Memory. Text Processing (Knowledge).

Main points:

1. Formal typologies.

2. Functional typologies.

3. Text processing (knowledge): syntactic, semantic, pragmatic.

LECTURE 18

Text Processing (Skills).

Main points:

Interconnection between text production and text reception.

2. Problem-solving and text-processing.

3. Synthesis: writing. Strategies and tactics.

4. Analysis: reading.

Main literature:

1. Бархударов Л. С. Язык и перевод. М., 1975.

2. Комиссаров В. Н. Слово о переводе. М., 1973.

3. Комиссаров В. Н. Лингвистика перевода. М., 1980.

4. Комиссаров В. Н. Теория перевода. М., 1990.

5. Комиссаров В. Н. Общая теория перевода. Проблемы переводоведения в освещении зарубежных ученых. М., 1999.

6. Комиссаров В. Н. Современное переводоведение \ Учебное пособие. М., 2001.

7. Латышев Л. К. Технология перевода. М., 2001.

8. Лилова А. Введение в общую теорию перевода. М., 1985.

9. Миньяр-Белоручев Р. К. Общая теория перевода и устный перевод. М., 1980.

10. Миньяр-Белоручев Р. К. Теория и методы перевода. М., 1996.

11. Миньяр-Белоручев Р. К. Последовательный перевод. М., 1969.

12. Миньяр-Белоручев Р. К. Записи в последовательном переводе. М., 1997.

13. Рецкер Я. И. Теория перевода и переводческая практика. М., 1974.

14. Федоров А. В. Основы общей теории перевода. М., 1983.

15. Швейцер А. Д. Теория перевода: Статус, проблемы, аспекты. М., 1988.

16. Швейцер А. Д. Перевод и лингвистика. М., 1973.

Additional literature:

1. Алексеева И. С. Профессиональное обучение переводчика. СПб., 2000.

2. Борисова Л. И. «Ложные друзья переводчика» научно-технической литературы. М., 1989.

3. Будагов Р. А. Ложные друзья переводчика // Человек и его язык. М., 1976.

4. Влахов С., Флорин С. Непереводимое в переводе. М., 2001.

5. Вопросы перевода в зарубежной лингвистике. М., 1978.

6. Гак В. Г. Языковые преобразования. М., 1998.

7. Максимов С. Є. Усний двосторонній переклад (англійська та українська мови)., Київ.,2002. Видавничий центр КНЛУ.

Перiодичні видання:

1. Тетради переводчика. вып. 1-24. М., 1963-1999.

2. Мир перевода. Журнал Союза переводчиков России. М., 1999-2003.

Англомовні видання:

1. Ilko V. Korunets’. Theory and practice of Translation. New Book., 2000.

2. Miram G. Translation Algorithms. Introduction to Translation Formalization. Kyiv “Tvim inter”., 1998.

3. Козакова Т. А. Imagery in Translation. (English Russian). Санкт-Петербург. Изд. «Союз»., 2003.

4. Kade O. Die Sprachmittling als gesellschaftliche Erscheinung und Gegenstand wissenschaftlicher Untersuchung. Leipzig, 1980.

5. Neubert A. Text and Translation. Leipzig, 1985.

6. Newmark P. Approaches to Translation. Oxford, 1981.

7. Newmark P. About Translation. Multilingual Matters LTD., 1991.

8. Nida E. Towards a science of translating. Leiden, 1964.

9. Nida E., Taber C. R. The Theory and Practice of translation. Leiden, 1964.

10. Nida E., Reyburn W. D. Meaning Across Cultures. N. Y., 1976.

11. Omar Sheikh Al. Shabab. Interpretation and the language of Translation: creativity and convenyions in translation., London., 1996.

12. Roger T. Bell. Translation and Translating: Theory and Practice., Longman., London and New York., 1991.

1 see: C. K. Ogden and Ivor A. Richard. The meaning of meaning. - London, 1949.

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