Claus Mathiesen

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Teaching Translation at ILR level 3 SOME
Thoughts and ideas

• Claus Mathiesen
• Head of Language Training Section
• Institute for Languages and Culture
• Royal Danish Defence College

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the intuitive approach..

• Student to me
• Translation? But, Claus, isnt that just to?

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ILR SKILL LEVEL DESCRIPTIONS FOR TRANSLATION
PERFORMANCE (Preface)

• A successful translation is one that conveys the
  explicit and implicit meaning of the source
  language into the target language as fully and
  accurately as possible.
• From the standpoint of the user, the translation
  must also meet the prescribed specifications and
  deadlines.

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ILR SKILL LEVEL DESCRIPTIONS FOR TRANSLATION
PERFORMANCE (Preface)

• Competence in two languages is necessary but not
  sufficient for any translation task.  Though the
  translator must be able to
• (1) read and comprehend the source language and
• (2) write comprehensibly in the target language,
  the translator must also be able to
• (3) choose the equivalent expression in the
  target language that both fully conveys and best
  matches the meaning intended in the source
  language (referred to as congruity judgment).

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ILR SKILL LEVEL DESCRIPTIONS FOR TRANSLATION
PERFORMANCE (Preface)

• A weakness in any of these three abilities will
  influence performance adversely and have a
  negative impact on the utility of the product. 
  Therefore, all three abilities must be considered
  when assessing translation skills.
• --------------------------------------------------
  ----------------------------
• (One) conclusion When translating between two
  languages, you can only reach the level of your
  reading/writing skills in the two languages.
• From a foreign language into your own 3(?)

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Level 3 (Professional Performance)

• Can translate texts that contain not only facts
  but also abstract language, showing an emerging
  ability to capture their intended implications
  and many nuances.
• Such texts usually contain situations and events
  which are subject to value judgments of a
  personal or institutional kind, as in some
  newspaper editorials, propaganda tracts, and
  evaluations of projects.
• Linguistic knowledge of both the terminology and
  the means of expression specific to a subject
  field is strong enough to allow the translator to
  operate successfully within that field.
• Word choice and expression generally adhere to
  target language norms and rarely obscure meaning.
• The resulting product is a draft translation,
  subject to quality control.

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SOME USEFUL TOOLS TO INCLUDE IN DISCUSSIONS WITH
STUDENTS

• MEANING
• INFORMATION
• FUNCTIONAL STYLES--------------------------------
  ---------
• TRANSLATION NORM(S)

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1) Semantics Meaning - DISSECTION

• Lexical
• referential
• pragmatic
• intralinguistic
• Grammatical
• morphological/grammatical categories
• syntactical

• Contextual
• close
• wider
• Extralinguistic
• time/place

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EXTRALINGUISTIC SITUATION(time, place,
surroundings, subject matter, participants etc.)
CONTEXT close - wider
LEXICAL MEANING
PRAGMATIC- style (neutral, spoken, written,
poetic, term)- register (colloquial, informal,
neutral, formal, ceremonial)- emotional
colouring (negative, neutral,
positive)---------- word order----------
metaphors- connotations(?)
REFERENTIAL 1) completely coinciding
2) partly coinciding 3) no coinciding

INTRALINGUISTIC- rhyme, rhythmic,
allitterations etc.- word play, nicknames etc.
- such as number, gender, case,aspects, time-
syntactical meanings (active, passive)
- OPTIONAL or- OBLIGATORY?
GRAMMATICAL MEANING
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2) TYPES OF INFORMATION

• cognitiv
• emotional-expressive
• dynamic
• aesthetic

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COGNITIV INFORMATIONdescriptivecompressed
APPELATIVE INFORMATIONprescriptive
AESTHETICINFORMATION
EMOTIONAL INFORMATIONsubjectivemetaphorical
TEXT TYPES can be differentiated by the
dominating type or the mix of types of
information they contain
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3) TYPOLOGY oF STYLESFive (six) functional
styles
NON-FICTION
FICTION
Official/business
Written
Literary
Scientific/technical
(monologic,prepared)
Colloquial
Publicistic/newspaper
(no conventions, individual style)
(conventionalized)
Spoken
(dialogic, unprepared)
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4) TRANSLATION NORMS

• equivalence adequacy
• target language correctness
• style and genre
• (super)pragmatics

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Hierarchy of Norm(s)
PRAGMATICS
STYLE and GENRE
TARGET LANGUAGE
EQUIVALENCE/ADEQUACY
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GUIDELINES for DECISIONMAKING

• the dissection of meaning
• the idea of the dominance of one kind of
  information being typical to different kinds of
  texts
• the understanding of the hierarchy of norms in
  translation
• provide good tools for the students, when
  deciding which of, normally, (too) many choices
  will be the best in a given situation

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MethoDOlogical APPROACHES-1

• defining the recipient(s)
• picking relevant texts representing increasing
  complexity
• providing general guidelines to the students
• setting time limits/deadlines

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DefinING the recipient(s)

• individual/group/collective?
• persons, who are interested in the country and
  what is going on there, but who do not possess
  any specialised knowledge of the countrys
  background or reality
• of utmost importance when deciding to which
  extent it will be necessary to make implicit
  meaning explicit
• State Duma Ptasie Mleczko

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PICKING THE RIGHT TEXTS-1publicistic/NEWSPAPER
style

• shares features with the scientific style
  coherent and logical syntactical structure,
  careful paragraphing, expanded system of
  connectives
• shares features with the style of belles-lettres
  words with emotive meaning, imagery

• Publicistic vs. newspaper style
• the goal of the publicistic style views, i.e.
  to shape the audience, to influence public
  opinion, to make the audience accept the
  speakers point of view
• the goal of the newspaper style news, i.e. to
  inform the audience

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PICKING THE RIGHT TEXTS-2publicistic/NEWSPAPER
style

• Syntactical Features
• coherent and logical syntactical structure
• careful paragraphing
• simple rather than complex sentences
• expanded system of connectives
• brevity of expression
• abundant use of modifiers (adjectives, adverbs)

• Lexical Features
• emphasis on accessibility and easy understanding
  gt paraphrasing rather than special terms
• only established and generally understood terms
  (e.g. Cold War)
• evaluating adjectives (e.g. the strongest
  pressure, growing menace, elementary blunder)
• traditional, unoriginal metaphors and similes
• newspaper clichés
• numerals, abbreviations, symbols

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PICKING THE RIGHT TEXTS-3publicistic/NEWSPAPER
style

• short news items (preferably complete texts)
• start with reports on events that could happen
  almost anywhere
• car accidents, fires, official visits
• continue with texts with a more local flavour
• anniversaries, social matters, etc.
• move on to texts with a highly local flavour
  including references, comments, elements of
  criticism, irony, humor, even poetry, etc.
• 15-20 texts for translation totally

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STUDENT Guidelines-1

• The purpose of reading the text before starting
  to translate
• general idea, intention of the author, tone
  etc.
• pre-translation analysis
• The first part of the translation is the most
  time-consuming
• Main difficulties/challenges
• Standardized expressions
• situational, unseparable, clichees
• Metaphors
• Terminology
• References to source-language reality
• geography, institutions, history, culture
• ethnography (dress, food, tools etc.)
• intertextuality (in the broadest sense)
• note references can be historical or
  contemporary
• Poetic language

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STUDENT Guidelines-2

• What to avoid?
• argot or semi-translations
• translators remarks
• formulations influenced by the source language
• punctuation influenced by the source language(!)

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STUDENT guidelines-3

• on translitteration
• on titles, names
• on using dictionaries
• on using the internet
• on using web-based resources

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MethoDOlogical APPROACHES-2

• make your own reference translation, before
  correcting the output of the students
• correct the students translations, providing
  good and exact guidance
• discuss (a few) general challenges in the
  translation with the class
• develop critical/self-critical awareness in
  smaller groups/pairs

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Approaches to be developed in the working process

• taking full responsibility for the translation
• thoroughnes (first language competence etc.)
• handling time pressure
• language awareness in general
• translation awareness
• the discussions during the process are more
  important than the result
• the possibilities of the internet have raised the
  bar regarding the quality of translation
  significantly!
• if you search, you will find (almost anything)!!
• hunting instinct

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Translatability

• Is it possible to translate everything?
• Yes,
• but not always without loss of meaning,
• which might even be significant.

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word-to-word or sense-to-sense?(the oldest
of all discussions about translation)

• as word-to-word as possible (imitating)
• as sense-to-sense as necessary (recreating)
• but first of all NATURALLY!

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MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

• Claus, now I really understand, WHY translation
  is NOT just to

(Yeah, and you be glad, its only a DRAFT, too,
you little i.!)
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FURTHER STEPS

• the described way of working with translation has
  proved to be a good stepping stone for
  training
• translation to a foreign language
• translation of military texts
• although they mainly belong to the
  scientific-technical functional style
• interpretation in general