ISSUES IN TRANSLATION STUDIES TEFL 496 SELMA GENC

What are the drawbacks of mistranslation What are the drawbacks of mistranslation? Bibles Changing the history Addition, shift, obscure terms, omitting Not expected feelings Miss information Not enough

One of the characteristics of the study is that, certainly initially, it was based on the practice of translating; much early writing was by individual translators and directed at explaining, justifying or discussing their choice of a particular translation strategy. Cicero considered translation necessary in order to overcome misunderstanding arising from a growing cultural and linguistic divide between the Greek and Roman worlds. While the Classical authors of ancient Greece and Rome exerted authority over much European thought and literature (and translation), an even more important phenomenon was the translation of the Bible itself.

Translation was a means of disseminating the word of God Translation was a means of disseminating the word of God. In this respect, the Greek Septuagint translation of Hebrew Scriptures in the third-fist centuries BCE was crucial. Once translation was allowed, the problem for the religious authorities was how to keep control over the different versions. This is a problem of ‘rewriting’, not unique translation, as is shown most evidently in the process of canonicity of sacred books of the major monotheistic religions ; that is decisions as to the material that was to be included and exact form of the text that was authorized (Peters,2007)

THE RISE OF ‘TRANSLATION STUDIES’ In comparison with many other academic disciplines or interdisciplines , translation studies is a relatively new area of inquiry, dating from the second half of the twentieth century and emerging out of other fields such as modern languages, comparative literature and linguistics. The very name translation studies was first proposed by James S. Holmes as late as 1972 as a better alternative to translatology and to translation science or science of translating.

WHAT IS TRANSLATION? What we actually mean by translation and what disciplines or activities fall within the scope of translation studies. Tripartite definition of translation advanced by the structural linguist Roman Jakobson. Intralingual translation or rewording: is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language. Interlingual translation or translation proper : is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language. 3. Intersemiotic translation or transmutation : is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems.

TRANSLATION STRATEGIES AS A CLINE more derivate more primary Word-for-word creative/primary literal free-adaptation formal functional Formal : focuses all attention on the massage itself Functional : equivalence an orientation that seeks to create the same response

THE SCOPE OF TRANSLATION STUDIES The term ‘translation theory’ is used by Holmes to refer to ‘theoretical studies’ the goal of which is to develop a full, inclusive theory accommodating so many elements that it can serve to explain and predict all phenomena falling outside it. Translation were studied, not as isolated texts, but within their cultural, literary and social-historical contexts, and as ‘facts of target cultures’.

CULTURAL AND OTHER ‘TURNS” IN TRANSLATION STUSIES The 1980 and 1980s also saw the growing influence of cultural studies on translation, the so called ‘cultural turn’. The notion of the aim of translation as being one of TL naturalness has also been changed by scholars such as Antonie Berman and Lawrence Venuti, who worked Schleiermacher’s distinction between the translator who brings the author to the writer and the translator who brings the writer to the author. It is Venuti’s terms ‘foreignization’ and ‘domestication’ his crictiism of Anglo-American literary translation scene and call for ‘resistance’ from translators, that have enjoyed popularity in recent years.

CHALLENGES TO PERCEPTION OF TRANSLATION Since translation and interpreting, in their myriad forms, necessarily involve language use/transfer/communication , the exclusion or downplaying of the linguistic and textual study of the subject would seem as foolish now as, in decades by, was the overlooking of translation as an intercultural phenomenon. PRESUPPOSITIONS by MARIA TYMZKO On translation as a mediating form between cultures, overlooking the fact that differential language use is often a marker of identity for a group; On the written text and on Classical Greco-Roman text type and genres; On the individual translator rather the team project (e.g. Buddhist translation in China) On the trained, professional translator in highly literate societies rather than the more informal, oral translator in many cultures.

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