Professional Documents
Culture Documents
TYPES OF TRANSLATION
ASPECTS
a) historical aspects: oral vs. written vs. mechanical
significance / historical role of TR - contribution to &
impact on:
development an growth of human culture (trade,
preachers, military exchanges, diplomatic affairs, transfer
of artefacts)
civilisation
individual languages
b) TYPES: literary vs. non-literary
c) METHODS of ORAL TR: simultaneous vs. consecutive
d) FORM: oral (always non-literary) vs. written
e) medium in which TR is performed:
mechanical & computer-aided vs. human
The role of the Translator
TLR as a linguistic person
(knowledge, spatio-temporal
restrictions)
Sender, TLR, Receiver as linguistic
persons in the communicative act
TLR as a linguistic person in the
communicative act:
change as much as necessary - BUT –
as little as possible
MECHANICAL / MACHINE TR (MT)
TRANSLATION
HUMAN
WRITTEN ORAL
consecutive
simultaneous
Sight translation
Audiovisual Translation (AVT)
http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/llp/exhibits/16/IntroAVTranslation_Adriana_S
erban.ppt#257,2,Talk map
AVT
Audiovisual translation (AVT) - subtitling
and dubbing:
one of the commonest forms of translation
encountered in everyday life in contemporary
societies
of the 8,108 hours of programming
broadcast by the Finnish broadcasting
company YLE in 1996, 48% consisted of
foreign-language programmes (including
re-runs) (Kontula, Larma and Petäinen
1997:52-53).
AVT
The visibility of AVT is probably one
reason why AVT also lends itself to easy
and occasionally sharp criticism among
viewers
"subtitles offer the pretext for a linguistic
game of 'spot the error'" for those
viewers who have a command of both
(Shochat and Stam 1985:46)
Internet sites devoted to listing subtitling
gaffes, e,g, Turun Sanomat 5.7.1998
It is interesting that in a sense AVT has
been a channel for venting ideas on
linguistic purism for quite a long while
E.g.: an angry viewer had written to the
editor complaining about the quality of a
subtitling in a film. (Paunonen 1996:549):
he demanded that distributors should take
action to improve the quality of translations, or
else censorship should intervene.
http://ethesis.helsinki.fi/julkaisut/hum/engla/pg/jaskanen
/ch2.html
Types of Translation
translation
TRANSLATION INTERPRETATION
Language interpreting or
interpretation
MECHANICAL
MECHANICAL
WRITTEN
NON-LITERARY
Types of Translation
COMPUTER-AIDED
MT CAT/MAT HAMT
Computer-assisted translation
translation / interpretation
general specialized
General translation/interpretation
the translation or interpretation of non-specific
language that does not require any specialized
vocabulary or knowledge
However, the best translators and interpreters
read extensively in order to be up-to-date with
current events and trends so that they are able
to do their work to the best of their ability,
having knowledge of what they might be asked
to convert
good translators and interpreters make an
effort to read about whatever topic they are
currently working on
Specialized translation or interpretation
refers to domains which require at the very least
that the person be extremely well read in the
domain.
training in the field (such as a college degree in
the subject, or a specialized course in that type of
translation or interpretation)
common types of specialized translation:
financial translation and interpretation
legal translation and interpretation
literary translation
medical translation and interpretation
scientific translation and interpretation
technical translation and interpretation
Translating for legal equivalence
For legal and official purposes, evidentiary
documents and other official documentation
are usually required in the official
language(s) of that jurisdiction. In some
countries, it is a requirement for
translations of such documents that a
translator swear an oath to attest that it is
the legal equivalent of the source text.
Often, only translators of a special class are
authorized to swear such oaths. In some
cases, the translation is only accepted as a
legal equivalent if it is accompanied by the
original or a sworn or certified copy of it
The procedure for translating to legal
equivalence differs from country to country
South Africa the translator must be authorized by
the High Court, and (s)he must use an original
(or a sworn copy of an original) in his physical
presence as his source text; the translator may
only swear by his own translation; there is no
requirement for an additional witness (such as a
notary) to attest to the authenticity of the
translation.
Croatia: registered by the court; formal
qualifications and exam
In the case of Mexico, some local instances,
such as the High Superior Court of Justice,
establish that a written and oral
examination should be taken for a
translator to be recognized as an expert or
"sworn" / “certified” translator (this kind of
translator does not swear before the court
to be authorized).
http://www.tsjdf.gob.mx/iej/peritos.html)
Even if a translator specializes in legal
translation or if (s)he is a lawyer in his
country, this does not necessarily make him
a sworn translator
Types of CAT
1. Infrastructure.
The infrastructure for a translation environment is
not necessarily translation-specific, but the
importance of infrastructure becomes even more
important in multilingual situations.
Elements of the infrastucture need to be as
integrated as possible, both among themselves
and with the actual translation process.
The elements of the infrastructure are:
Document creation/management system
Terminology database
Telecommunications (intranet/Internet, e-mail, ftp,
web browsing, etc.)
2. Term-level before translation:
Term candidate extraction and terminology
research. Term candidate extraction and
terminology research are used to determine what
words might be candidates for inclusion in a term
base.
After a source language term is identified, by
candidate extraction or some other process,
terminology research is needed to find an
appropriate term in the target language to
designate the concept.
Terminology research can draw on many
resources, including the
Internet and multilingual text databases.
As an example,