Translation Studies: Retrospective and Prospective views

Cuprins

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Cuprins

L' IDENTIFICATION ET LA TRADUCTION DE L’IMPARFAIT CONTREFACTUEL

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Dans la liste des tiroirs verbaux, l’imparfait est certainement le temps le plus étudié du français puisqu’il a de nombreux usages et des effets de sens variés. Traditionnellement, l’imparfait est présenté comme un temps du passé. Suffirait-il de définir l’imparfait comme un temps du passé ? Il est vrai que dans la transposition d’une action au présent d’énonciation dans le passé, l’imparfait de concordance s’impose de toute évidence. Cependant, d’autres approches considèrent que, dans la description de l’imparfait, des caractéristiques textuelles ou aspectuelles comptent plus que la valeur temporelle, ou que valeur temporelle et aspectuelle vont de pair.

ON SOME DIFFICULTIES IN TRANSLATING FROM ENGLISH INTO ROMANIAN

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Essentially, and starting from Nida`s opinion, the translation process is one in which a person who knows both the source and the target languages, decodes the message of the source language (SL) and encodes it into an appropriate equivalent of the target language
(TL). In order to better describe translating, we have chosen, from among its numerous definitions, the one given by Nida and Taber, considered by some authors to be the most relevant and practical usefulness: “Translating consists in reproducing in the target language the
closest natural equivalent to be the message of the source language, first in meaning and secondly in terms of style.” As the adopted definition emphasizes, meaning is to be given priority, for, in translating, it is the content of the message which is of prime importance; although style is
secondary to content, it is nevertheless important, that is why, one should not translate poetry as if it were prose.

TYPES OF REFERENCE – ACHIEVING COHESION BY CREATING LINKS BETWEEN ELEMENTS

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In this paper we follow the model of cohesion set up by Halliday and Hasan in 1976 in Cohesion in English. According to them, cohesion and coherence can be studied only within a text pointing out that in fact we study the product of the process of talking or writing,
listening or reading. Generally, we refer to text as a written product because it is easier to notice its structural organization.
The organization of text is both formal and semantic, but it is important to think of it as “an outgoing process of meaning” (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 524). Cohesion studies the textual metafunction of the text which refers to the system of
Theme, achieved by marked or unmarked Theme selections, giving prominence to a certain pattern (also known as “method of development”, Halliday 1995), e.g chronology and focus on Subject in narrative and biographical discourse, and angle of assessment, e.g. hypothesis
in scientific discourse. The textual metafunction develops a set of lexicogrammatical systems which, alongside the semantic and contextual resources, create and interpret a text. There are four ways by which cohesion is created in English: conjunction, reference, ellipsis and lexical organization. In this paper we are concerned with reference as a relationship between things or facts which may be established at various distances in texts and which can also turn any passage of text into a clause participant.

A SYSTEMIC INTERPRETATION OF J. K. ROWLING’S “HARRY POTTER” AND STEPHENIE MEYER’S “TWILIGHT”

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When rendering a particular text from the source language into the target language, the translator should take into consideration the multi-layered structure of the language. Barbara M. H. Strang discusses modern English structure referring to “language as an
articulated system of signs” (1968: 6). On the other hand, Ferdinand de Saussure defines semiology as “a science that studies the life of signs within society” (Matthews 2003: 135) considering that linguistics is only a part of the general science of semiology.
A system is understood in terms of its units and their combinatory relationships. According to the stratification principle (Hjelmslev 1967), the linguistic levels are hierarchically organized, that is a unit of a certain level is made up of one or more units of
the inferior level. Consequently, there are many more units at a superior level than at an inferior one. Stratification creates the following linguistic levels: a) the level of the distinctive features; b) the level of the phoneme and of the semanteme; c) the morpheme, the word and the enunciation levels (Bidu-Vrănceanu et. all 1997: 476).

DIE ANGLIZISMEN IN DEN MEDIEN – MODE ODER NOTWENDIGKEIT?

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Hört man den Begriff „Anglizismus“, denkt man in erster Linie an „Fremdwort“. Als Angehöriger einer Sprachgemeinschaft ist man an bestimmte Struktur (Morphologie und Syntax) und Aussprache (Phonologie) seiner Muttersprache (Nationalsprache) gewöhnt.
Wörter der eigenen Sprache vermitteln Eindruck der Durchsichtigkeit und Vertrautheit. Begegnet dem Sprachbenutzer ein Wort nicht zur Struktur seiner Gewohnheitssprache paßt, so ist ihm dieses Wort nicht vertraut – es ist ihm fremd Daß Fremdwörtern aufgrund dieser Tatsache häufig Mißtrauen entgegen gebracht wird, liegt also an der Unmotiviertheit ihrer morphologischen und semantischen Struktur (Saussure). Im Verlauf dieser Arbeit soll herausgestellt werden, inwieweit dieser Sachverhalt auf den Anglizismus in der deutschen Sprache zutrifft.

RECIT PARABOLIQUE ET REECRITURE DES MYTHES CHEZ TH. MANN : LA MORT A VENISE

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Dans l’Introduction des études réunies en 1979 dans Figures mythiques et visages de l’œuvre, Gilbert Durand observait que, « contrairement à ce qu’enseigne toute une pédagogie, au moins bicentenaire, il n’y a pas de coupure entre les scenarios significatifs des antiques mythologies et l’agencement moderne des récits culturels: littérature, beaux-arts, idéologies
et histoires... » (Durand 1979: 11) En reprenant la problématique du « retour du mythe » dans le recueil de conférences publiées en 1996 dans Introduction à la mythodologie, le mythicien mettait à l’origine de la « nouvelle mouvance anthropologique » une « profonde révolution, une gigantesque résurgence de ce que nos pédagogies – et les épistèmes résultantes – avaient soigneusement pendant des siècles et des siècles, refoulé ou tout au moins mis à la portion congrue », en entraînant la culture et la pensée occidentale sur la voie de l’« iconoclastie » et de la « démythologisation ». (Durand 1996: 20)

CONTRASTIVITE ET TRADUCTION. DOMAINE FRANÇAIS-ANGLAIS

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Le présent article vise en même temps la description de certains phénomènes de traduction en avançant quelques principes explicatifs et en essayant de théoriser certaines pratiques traductionnelles. Cette recherche est le résultat des observations faites pendant la formation en traduction des étudiants en master Discours spécialisé – terminologies - traduction du Département de français de l’Université Dunărea de Jos de Galaţi, Roumanie et surtout à la suite du cours et du séminaire de Grammaire contrastive: domaine français-anglais. Le travail avec les étudiants a eu comme objectif de leur faire observer les principes et les phénomènes récurrents dans l’activité de traduction ainsi que les contrastes qui existent entre les deux systèmes linguistiques, français et anglais, qui peuvent déterminer le choix du traducteur.

TRANSLATING ‘CRIME’ AND ‘CRIMINAL’ IN COLLOCATIONS

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The words crime and criminal conjure up images of murders to most people working outside the legal system. This is far from being true because these two terms are used in reference to many violations of the law, not just crimes injuring persons, but also to stealing things, and numerous other serious offenses. When the former aspect is taken into account, i.e. crimes injuring persons, mention
can be made of such crimes as assault, mugging, murder and rape, whereas, in the case of stealing things, robbery, burglary, theft, shoplifting, fraud, carjacking are among the most frequent crimes referred to by the specialists in the field.

“TRANSLATING” PEOPLE’S FEELINGS THROUGH PARAVERBAL SIGNS

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Negotiation is a process of communication between partners who have different points of view regarding the reality they both share. Negotiation, as an aspect of oral communication, becomes the most obvious place for the manifestation of personal
implication, identified at multiple levels (the paraverbal one being included), as the speaker permanently tries to adapt to his message, to the situation and to the interlocutor. The speaker qualifies, judges, comes up with arguments, persuades, and influences his partner, provoking him to a reaction, transforming him into an active factor of the verbal exchange.
The speaker’s choice of paraverbal signs is, from a stylistic point of view, strongly related to the expression of his feelings. By choosing a certain tempo of speech, a high or a low voice, a powerful or a weak intensity or an emphatic accent, the speaker follows the logic of affectivity, translating his feelings, indicating his position towards himself, towards his message but also towards the interlocutor from whom he expects a certain action.

ETUDE LEXICOGRAPHIQUE BILINGUE (FRANÇAIS-ROUMAIN):

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L’activité de rapport est extrêmement complexe vu qu’il ne s’agit pas d’une simple reprise des paroles prononcées antérieurement mais d’une mise en scène qui s’assortit de tous les artifices et modulations possibles. A ce titre, il serait difficile de citer des cas où le discours direct et sa variante rapportée sont équivalents. Cela se passe en premier lieu parce que le rapport dépend de la façon dont le locuteur rapporteur a compris et décodé l’intention énonciative de l’émetteur du discours direct. A cette interprétation s’ajoutent les intrusions volontaires du locuteur, ce qui modifie essentiellement le degré de fidélité du rapport.

INDICATORS OF DISSOCIATION IN FRENCH AND THEIR ROMANIAN AND ENGLISH EQUIVALENTS

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Dissociation, a concept introduced in Argumentation Theory by Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (The New Rhetoric, 1958), is considered in studies of argumentation and of rhetoric as a technique which allows a speaker to change the notional starting points of a discussion. Dissociation is a rhetorical mechanism allowing the speaker to discard the semantic contents corresponding to a given notion and to propose a new semantic content as corresponding to the notion assigned this time the linguistic expression the true X. This is the prototypical formula corresponding to the mechanism of dissociation, but other words and phrases, more commonly called indicators may also serve to identify a dissociation in context.

WHAT IS SAID, WHAT IS IMPLICITED, WHAT IS IMPLICATED

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Before embarking on our analysis of Grice’s concept of Conversational Implicature and, above all, of the problems with this theory, we will describe the three types of source of knowledge that provide a contextual background for understanding utterances.
There are three main sources for the knowledge a speaker has to estimate, i.e. ‘knowledge as context’ (a speaker chooses how to make references to an entity making estimations of what his/her listeners knows).
The three main sources are:
•the physical context;
•what has already been said;
•background or common knowledge.
The first source refers to deictic expressions.

“HOCUS-POCUSING” THE BODY. TECHNOLOGY AND FEMININITY IN PRINT ADS

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The starting point of the present paper is the observation made by a number of French scholars that we are now living in hypermodern times, i.e. we are living in an era which is mainly characterized by excess at all possible levels (cf. Aubert 2004, Tissier-Desbordes 2004, Lipovetski 2005). These scholars argue that the postmodern world, with its back turned on modernity, has been replaced by a world characterized by the increased intensification of modernity’s most cherished beliefs, i.e. consumption, science, and individualism, a world whose underlying principles are fast-forward and ever-more. In Lipovetsky’s words: “We had a limited modernity, now is time of consummate modernity” (2005: 30).

La LANGUE DES LOGICIELS : PROBLÈMES DE TRADUCTION

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L’Union européenne et les langues
Des années auparavant, lors d’une conférence donnée aux Assises de la traduction littéraire en Arles [1], Umberto Eco prononçait cette phrase qui devait rester célèbre pour le contexte actuel de l’Union européenne : « La langue de l’Europe c’est la traduction ». L’Europe unie comporte désormais 23 langues officielles et cette famille linguistique ne cessera de s’agrandir. La diversité des langues est constitutive de l’Union européenne. Le plurilinguisme est une réalité riche d’espoirs pour le devenir de la communauté. Autant de langues et de cultures qui sont amenées à “vivre ensemble” appellent l'idée de diversité dans
l’unité : bâtir une politique respectueuse des différences pour maintenir un idéal de bonheur commun.

EPONYMS IN THE FINANCIAL VOCABULARY

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Eponyms are to be found in most fields, however little research has been done so far, it being assigned to various compartments of linguistics and stylistics. The present paper represents a subdivision of a more complex study that aims at proving that eponymy may be considered a highly productive word building process within the scope of the scientific discourse. The intent of this paper is neither to dwell on the lexicologists’ debates regarding the status of eponymy that have not reached a consensus yet, nor to make an exhaustive theoretical approach to the eponyms or insist on any formal or structural aspect of what will
be outlined to be a general characterization.

CULTURAL MODELS IN COMMUNICATION AND TRANSLATION

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The words “culture” and “translation” are being increasingly linked. Interculturalists, such as Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, acknowledge the fact that they have seldom found two or more groups of individuals having the same suggestions relating to the concept of culture. Two American anthropologists, Alfred Louis Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, compiled a list of 164 definitions and their own definition of culture was the following: “Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiment in artefacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values. Culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other hand, as conditioning elements of future action”.

ADVERTISING LANGUAGE: WORDS THAT TRIGGER FEELINGS

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Some people have the tendency of giving it a cold shoulder, imposing a certain distance towards it, pretending that, even if for some it might ‘work’, for them it does not. I strongly believe that advertising language should not be treated as a step sister or as ordinary discourse; there are marketing strategies and also many other proofs to confirm that advertising influences a large group of individuals in a surprisingly direct way. Even if advertising has a passing character, a short life, its effect lasts longer. The traces
advertising leaves behind get together in forming messages about the culture they come from. These messages reflect the values of the leading social groups that produced their texts, but this self-reflection can even go that far as to become normal for everybody.

TRANSLATING ECONOMIC TEXTS

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The specialist English terms used in business raise the question of to be, or not to be translated. The fields of business, technology and communication have developed rapidly, due to globalization and the changes in the political systems all over the world. New terms are coined almost every day, due to the new realities, or the linguistic needs to express new concepts. Since English – speaking countries are so economically dominating, and since English is the lingua franca of today, the new terms are in English in most cases, even if the creators themselves might not have English as their native language. Countries like France and Norway tried to translate some of the new words into their own corresponding native terms, and sometimes the results were ridiculous. On the other hand, there are countries where the influence of English terms is accepted, and consider their translation redundant, as in most cases it is the professionals in various areas who use the English terms. These terms also make up a kind of specialized vocabulary, especially for the people working with multinationals.

An APPROACH TO EPONYMS IN MATHEMATICS

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The background to this study lies in the field of word formation, with a particular insight into the structure of mathematical set phrases which include personal names. Aim of the study: basing our argument on the hypothesis that eponymization has been highly productive in the general English vocabulary, we scrutinize the phenomenon from its structural perspectives. Materials and methods: the paper provides an epistemology of mathematical eponyms by describing various eponym-including terms useful in the
scientific terminology, in general and in the mathematical terminology, in particular. Results: whilst numerous eponymous elements are shared by most of the scientific terminologies (medicine, economics, physics, chemistry and mathematics), a considerable number of such structures are used in mathematics exclusively. Over 320 eponymists have been recorded to have their names included in ‘set phrases’ related to the mathematical terminology which means that at least an equal number of linguistic patterns may provide investigation and analysis material. For practical purposes only a few such formations were selected and they will be used to account for a wide diversity of personal names associated with common words. Nevertheless, mathematical eponyms present structures which are characteristic to the mathematical jargon only. Conclusion: the paper advocates not only the presence but also the structural abundance of eponymisms in the specialist terminology of mathematics.

LANGUAGE, POWER, TRANSLATION AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

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Cultural models (or culturally shared attitudes) are rooted in people’s ideas about the world they live in. Although potentially transmittable in a variety of ways, cultural models are mainly passed on via language. The linguistic transmission of culture may take overt forms (proverbs, myths, legends) or covert ones (through daily communicative interaction), both linked to the core notion of reality – which is neither absolute nor abstract, but experienced “within familiar contexts of social behaviour and cultural meanings.” (Bonvillain 2003: 47)

On THE CLASSIFICATION OF PROVERBS

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A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical fixed form and which is handed down from generation to generation. The definition of a proverb has caused scholars from many disciplines a lot of debate over the centuries. Thus, many attempts at definition have been made from Aristotle to the present time, ranging from philosophical considerations to lexicographical definitions. Archer Taylor (1931) begins his analysis of proverbs with the claim that it is impossible to give a full definition of the genre. Furthermore, he goes on
explaining in much detail what proverbs are all about: ’’The definition of a proverb is too difficult to repay the undertaking; and should we fortunately combine in a single definition all the essential elements and give each the proper emphasis, we should not even then have a touchstone. An incommunicable quality tells us this sentence is proverbial and that one is not. Hence no definition will enable us to identify positively a sentence as proverbial. Those who do not speak a language can never recognize all its proverbs, and similarly much that is truly proverbial escapes us in Elizabethan and older English. Let us be content with recognizing that a proverb is a saying current among the folk. At least so much of a definition is indisputable’’. (Taylor 1931: 3)

ETUDE LEXICOGRAPHIQUE BILINGUE (FRANÇAIS-ROUMAIN). LE CAS DES VERBES DE RAPPORT DEMENTIR, NIER, REJETER

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Cette étude présente la démarche lexicographique faite au niveau de trois verbes, à savoir démentir, nier, rejeter, considérés en tant que verbes de parole qui introduisent le discours rapporté. Selon les méthodes classiques de la grammaire distributive et transformationnelle, nous essayons de mettre en évidence les diverses constructions syntaxiques, en prêtant une attention particulière aux compléments que ces verbes peuvent exiger de manière assez fréquente pour que l’on puisse leur assigner le statut de séquences quasi-figées. Cette étude présente une double visée: 1) préciser le sémantisme des verbes de parole en étroite liaison avec leur comportement syntaxique (dans cette démarche, nous nous appuyons sur les travaux de Gross 1975 et de Giry-Schneider 1994 par le biais de la notion de nom opérateur approprié); 2) dresser un parallèle entre deux dictionnaires monolingues français d’un côté, et entre ces dictionnaires français et un autre bilingue français-roumain selon qu’ils saisissent ou non tout le sémantisme des verbes envisagés (nous opérons cette analyse sur les dictionnaires suivants: le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (TLFi), le Larousse, Dictionnaire français-roumain de Gheorghina Haneş).

MORPHO-SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF LEGAL LANGUAGE. SYNTACTIC COMPLEXITY AND SYNTACTIC DISCONTINUITY IN LEGAL TRANSLATIONS

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Until recently, linguists have paid relatively little attention to professional jargons, possibly because they shared the common belief that the primary differences between professional jargons and ordinary usage were purely lexical. In the last few years, we have begun to recognize that professional sublanguages –
such as medical language, scientific language and legal language – in fact, have important distinctive features, beyond the lexical level. The most readily apparent differences may indeed be lexical, but there may also be syntactic and discourse features that are equally important. This is especially true in the case of legal language (Charrow et al 1982: 175). Studies undertaken of the structural properties of the register of legal English have labeled the style as “frozen” due to formulaic structures which seem old fashioned in
modern language use. Furthermore, the legal register is characterized by long sentences and by an impersonal style with many formulaic expressions and typical legal vocabulary.

LEXICAL LOAN, CULTURAL OVERTONE

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In cultural terms, the influence of Anglo-American life is obvious in the number of lexical loans accompanying the development of speculative thought and scientific ideas in today’s Romanian environment. We shall proceed to analyze loans in relation to transmorphemization, which points to degrees of morphological substitution of (in our case, English) loan words when brought into Romanian. In primary adaptation, the vast majority of such words remain at the stage of zero substitution; fewer cases than those cover the loan words undergoing complete transmorphemization. The innovative potential of the recipient language is shown in the stage of secondary adaptation in which the process of word formation is very much alive: learned words of Greek and Latin origin are replaced by the corresponding Romanian lexical elements. Between these extremes – zero and complete processes – exists what has been dubbed compromise substitution or compromise transmorphemization.