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This article was downloaded by: On: 18 February 2009 Access details: Access Details: Free Access Publisher Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Perspectives Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t794297831
Book Review
Online Publication Date: 01 May 2007
To cite this Article (2007)'Book Review',Perspectives,15:2,143 — 151 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13670050802153863 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13670050802153863
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Book Reviews
Downloaded At: 23:26 18 February 2009
Corpora in Translator Education Federico Zanettin, Silvia Bernardini and Dominic Stewart (eds). Manchester: St. Jerome, 2003. Pp. 154. ISBN 1-900650-60-6 (pbk): £19.50. This book describes a unique experience of building, developing and using various corpora in the context of the translation classroom and grew out of presentations at the second Conference on Corpus Use and Learning to Translate held in Italy in November 2000. A variety of corpora are discussed, such as monolingual corpora, comparable bilingual corpora and parallel corpora, including DIY (virtual), specialised and reference corpora, developed specifically with translation needs in mind. The main emphasis is on the use of corpora as teaching aids in the translator-training environment. It is therefore natural that the volume starts with an introduction by Silvia Bernardini, Dominic Stewart and Federico Zanettin, leading experts in the field of corpus research. As editors of the book, they have summed up all the contributions. The first paper, by Jennifer Pearson, demonstrates how aligned parallel corpora can help trainees see what strategies professional translators usually employ to solve different translation problems. In the next contribution, Natalie Ku¨bler shows how the use of various corpora and corpus-query tools contributes to better and easier work of LSP translators. She describes the experiment carried out and argues that the introduction of corpora in the training of translators can radically change their education, as ‘learners are not simply presented with evidence, but are expected to browse corpora for themselves, without the mediation of a teacher who ‘‘digests’’ data and offers generalizations’ (p. 10). Belinda Maia focuses on the construction of disposable corpora on specialised subjects using printed texts and CD-ROMs and suggests that translator students should be trained to construct specialised corpora with the aim of information retrieval and terminology extraction. This is especially of vital importance for minor or ‘less prestigious’ languages, such as Portuguese, where reliable good-quality electronic texts are less available than in major languages. Krista Varantola focuses on the use of disposable, ad hoc corpora in translation. Her study is based on a workshop experiment employing the World Wide Web as a resource for comparable corpora of electronic texts used for lexical and textual management in translation. She concludes that modern translational competence should also include corpus linguistic knowledge, and prospective translators should be taught basic corpus compilation and obtain skills such as search strategies and search word selection, assessment of corpus adequacy and relevancy, evaluation and deductive analysis of a corpus, etc. The paper of Ana Frankenberg-Garcia and Diana Santos is an introduction to the PortugueseEnglish bidirectional parallel corpus Compara, which is an open-ended machine-readable collection of PortugueseEnglish and English Portuguese original texts and translations. They describe its structure, basic 143
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principles of text selection and techniques of aligning source texts and translations. Tony McEnery and Paul Baker found out that despite the high level of interest from translators in working with non-indigenous European minority languages, such as Tamil, Hindi, Urdu and Farsi, such languages are still poorly served with corpus/language processing tools in comparison with indigenous languages in Europe. Of special didactic interest is the paper by Lynne Bowker and Peter Bennison describing the development and application of the Student Translation Archive including all translations of the same source text, all translations belonging to the same subject field, etc., and the Student Translation Tracking System (STTS). They are used to select, manage and study the texts translated by students. In particular, the STTS allows a teacher to extract from an archive a corpus of translations of a given source text done by the students and analyse them according to specific criteria, which, for instance, might be very helpful in discussing various versions of translated text segments in a classroom. Although the use of corpus-based methodologies proves to be very important in translation studies, there are, according to Kirsten Malmkjær, some doubts as to how wide the range of their uses is in solving real-life translation problems. She argues that corpus evidence might be misleading in some cases and stifle creative inspiration, and that it is worth exploring ways of using corpora which may seem subversive of standard uses. As is evident from the examples cited, her remarks concerning the need for a cautious use of corpora in translating might be true only of literary translation, where ‘it is sometimes necessary to break a norm instead of obeying it’ (p. 132). All in all, the book under review provides a wealth of information about the standard uses of various corpora as a translator’s resource. It shows how to select electronic texts, compile corpora depending on the specific needs of a translator and use them in solving a variety of linguistic problems. Although the book is primarily intended for researchers and practitioners dealing with corpora in translation education, it is also highly suitable for use as a course textbook. doi: 10.1080/13670050802153863
Valentin Shevchuk Moscow State Linguistic University, Russia
A Handbook for Translator Trainers Dorothy Kelly. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 2005. Pp. 172, with glossary and index. ISBN 1-900650-81-9: £18.00. Kelly’s handbook is neatly interactive, with direct questions to users in shaded frames. It is also suitably repetitive, enacting the sound pedagogical principle that the same point has to be made several times, from different perspectives, for it to sink in. Each chapter begins with a ‘summary and aims’ of what is developed in the subsequent pages. From Chapter 2 onward this is preceded by an outline of
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the various stages involved, not in the translating process, but in the elaboration of a translation course, with relevant sections highlighted.1 Some of these will be improved as trainers get more experienced. All chapters end with suggestions for further reading. The author is rejoicingly aware both of the variety of contexts in which students can be trained to become translators, and of the diversity of approaches that can be used. Some of her recommendations and comments I fully agree with, as for instance the importance of using actual translation commissions, or indeed of involving students in them, or the relative difficulty of ‘general’ texts such as newspaper articles because of the element of creativity, often involving the use of metaphors, that students have to fully understand and learn how to recreate in their target texts. Her first chapter, however, which sets out to introduce major approaches and is necessarily highly synthetic, is at times slightly distorting. While she does mention the´orie du sens in connection with Delisle, it could be useful to remind readers of some of the tenets of those proponents of Ecole de Paris (ESIT), among whom Seleskovitch and Lederer, including a key (and mindboggling) notion: that of deverbalisation, the dissociation of what the text means from words in any language.2 This being said, Delisle’s exercises on specific translation hurdles can be most useful in class. Kelly’s comment on Robinson’s view of the translating process is somewhat intriguing. Robinson does indeed contrast two complementary aspects, namely the freewheeling subconscious and consequently fairly fast processing from one language into the other, and the systematic checking and background researching. I very much doubt whether they can be assimilated into ‘slow academic ( . . .) learning on the one hand, and fast, real-world learning’ (p. 17), as the distinction is not between ‘academic’ and ‘real-world’, but between which switches we activate in our minds. Kelly’s second chapter examines the expectations and constraints that shape a course programme ‘upstream’, as it were. In the definition of what translators do, given by the National Centre for Languages (UK), the final words (‘the final translated document should read as clearly as it did in the original’) ought in many cases be replaced by ‘should read more clearly than it did in the original’: we are all familiar with disastrous original texts. Another important aspect in the ‘interpersonal competences’ mentioned on pages 33 and 35 is thus ‘diplomatic skill’ (the art of explaining that the text is greatly improved and should be revised in the original too, without hurting the author’s feelings). This is probably what is meant by the sentence: ‘Students will be able to (. . .) communicate their opinions in such a way as to avoid or resolve potential conflict’ (p. 39). In the third chapter, the author comments on the growing heterogeneity of the student population and contrasts different profiles and expectations among trainers. The fourth chapter considers various possible curricula, taking the new Bologna expectations and the POSI (short for ‘PraxisOrientierte StudienInhalte’) recommendations into account. Chapter 5 turns to resources, including the kind of rooms where teaching takes place, textbooks, computer facilities, mobility programmes and work placements. Chapter 6 presents various teaching methods; how to use group work and
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peer tutoring, for instance. Chapter 7 (‘Sequencing’) inevitably dovetails with Chapters 5 and 6 in its description of choices trainers have to make, including their choice of texts. Chapter 8 discusses methods of assessment; it suggests intelligent tips such as asking students to provide a ‘bibliography of resources used, with comments on usefulness, accessibility, reliability and so on’ (p. 135), giving students the possibility to hand in a translation portfolio including a piece of market research and glossaries and contrasts grading references, either to a notional perfect translation or to a statistical norm. This chapter ends on how to evaluate the course, which leads to the final chapter on the ‘need for trainer training and trainer competence’ (p. 150). In many respects, this is a useful little guidebook for teachers in translation programmes by someone who (from Chapter 2 onward) obviously knows what she is on about.
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doi: 10.1080/13670050802153889
Christine Pagnoulle Lie`ge, Belgium
Notes 1.
2.
Identify social needs/Formulate outcomes/Identify student profile and needs/ Design course content/Identify/acquire resources (trainer training)/Design activities/Design assessment/Design course evaluation/Implementation/Quality enhancement. I quite understand that translators have to move away from the words used in the source text, but can meaning exist where there are no words at all?
Translation and Globalization Michael Cronin. London: Routledge, 2003. Pp. 208. ISBN 978-0-415-27064-9 (hbk): $145.00. ISBN 978-0-415-27065-6 (pbk): $45.95. This is one of the impressive books that immediately makes one realise the importance of translational activities in cross-cultural communication in this ‘global’ age and that highlights the various cultural factors that have an impact on translation studies. Michael Cronin, dean of the Joint Faculty of Humanities and Director of the Center for Translation and Textual Studies at Dublin City University, Ireland, presents us with the most controversial issues of language policies in a globalised world, innovatively explores the interaction of translation practice, the global economy, the global politics and today’s multicultural and multilinguistic realities, and creatively offers new ways of understanding the role of the translator in globalised societies and economies. Drawing on numerous examples and case studies from Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, the author argues that translation, and by extension translation studies, is ideally placed to explain the two opposite transnational movements: globalisation and anti-globalisation. Cronin shows why translation is central to debates about language and cultural identity, and why consideration of the role of translation and translators is indispensable to safeguarding and promoting linguistic and cultural diversity in human history.
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The book begins with an introduction which serves as a guide to the comprehension of the work. Its five chapters discuss the issue of translation in a world transformed by the forces of globalisation. In Chapter 1, ‘Translation and the Global Economy’, the author explores the major changes in the economy and information technology over the last three decades which have impacted on translation. In this chapter, the author focuses on the following points: (1) the change of economic factors will dramatically influence the context of translation activity; (2) technological tools in translation are not simply convenient adjuncts to the activity of translators; they are central to the definitions of what they do and always have done; (3) the role of social factors in conjunction with the technical dimension of translation is identified not simply as a means of instant communication but as a channel of transmission over time; (4) language diversity is an essential element of plurality, which aids in understanding the functioning and consequences of translation; (5) genuine intercultural understanding is impeded by aggressively monoglot views of the world. In Chapter 2, ‘Globalization and New Translation Paradigms’, the author deals with contemporary models of translation organisation and asks what the role of the translator might be in the 21st century. In this chapter, the author mainly investigates the concept of network and how the properties of networks can be explored to describe features of translation activity worldwide in the global age. Here, Cronin points to the decisive shift from ‘centralized data storage and processing to net-worked, interactive powersharing’ (Castells, 1996: 45). In this connection, three aspects are highlighted: firstly, a network is capable of being extended indefinitely; it is open and multiedged rather than closed and centralised (Kelly, 1995: 2527). Correspondingly, new elements can lead to restructuring without collapse. Secondly, networks have insides and outsides. That is to say, the potential openness of the network does not mean that it is open to all. The roles of the gatekeeper and the switch deciding who gets included in and who is excluded from translation networks are important, and the concern with exclusion has been a powerful mobilising factor for the anti-globalisation movements. Thirdly, the logic of the network is greater than the power of its individual nodes (Castells, 1996: 193). In other words, the connectedness of nodes is what permits their flexible and dynamic response to changing situations, but it is shared goals and values which allow for a level of structural coherence in the network itself (p. 45). In Chapter 3, ‘Globalization and the New Geography of Translation’, the author investigates the changing geography of translation practice, and how translation in Ireland has been affected by contemporary globalisation. The author begins with global definitions and points out that the concept of ‘globalisation’ has been interpreted differently by theoreticians such as Robertson, Friedman and Hall. The concept, as used by the author, refers to ‘a critical theory of globalization that encompasses global movements and exchanges of people, commodities and ideas, and a politico-historical approach to changes in global processes’ (p. 77), and the perspective of globalisation means that ‘our translation histories are no longer confined to the internal experience of the territorially bounded nation-state but include the
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manifold translation activities of a country’s diaspora’ (p. 78). Cronin then moves on to discuss the Irish experience in the context of a transnational translation history, and the specific technical and economic reasons for Ireland’s emergence as one of the most important centres in the world for the translation of computer materials in the global context. The extent to which the type of translation practised in late modern Ireland favours or militates against cultural diversity is then considered. Taking the issue beyond Ireland, the author analyses the censorship of translation, a phenomenon which has often been ignored. Finally, the author points out that as more and more people become inhabitants of global cities, the issue of translation has been raised as part of an argument for a new, polyglossic civility. In Chapter 4, ‘Globalization and the New Politics of Translation’, the author explores the key features of globalisation which influence translation politics, namely, time, the rise of supranational institutions and organisations, automation and the economic power of specific languages. The author stresses the following three points: (1) the implications for translators with differential access to technology in markets and societies are increasingly driven by considerations of time; (2) the relation between automation and creativity in translation practice are complementary rather than antagonistic; (3) the translator in the age of globalisation should be much more self-aware and sensitive towards phenomena such as the dangers of a new ‘colonialism’ (the spread of sameness). In Chapter 5 ‘Translation and Minority Languages in a Global Setting’, the author examines the importance and strategy of considering minority languages in various areas such as training and research, other than merely literary translation, in order to retain linguistic and cultural diversity. As the author puts it, ‘the relative indifference of translation studies to the situation of minority languages is considered alongside the differing responses of a minority language to translation, seen alternatively as a threat or a godsend’ (p. 5). Viewed from a nomadic translation perspective, travelling in a minority language is seen a way of illuminating translation dilemmas in the contemporary world. Last but not least, the author proposes a new translation ecology which attaches due importance to particularism and place without a contradictory retreat to ethnocentric smugness. In its systematic and creative analysis of the current debate on the role of translation and translation studies, this book can be considered as an insightful and innovative contribution to both translation studies and cultural studies. The discussion of translation tools, localisation and hegemony, the censorship of translation experience and minority languages, and the foregrounding of cultural factors of the global village may all fascinate anyone with an interest in translation studies, cultural studies and other related academic disciplines. Most importantly, central issues such as ‘translational activity in the context of cultural openness’, ‘diversity vs. hegemony in translation’ and ‘who gets included in and who is excluded from translation networks’ will inspire not merely translation theorists, but all those engaged in translation practices. To conclude, this book is highly stimulating. Its theoretical creativity, its case studies and its useful ideas regarding practical translation will make it a
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valuable reference book for both translators and people concerned with the future of our world’s languages and cultures. doi: 10.1080/13670050802153897
Fan Min School of Foreign Languages and Literature Shandong University
References Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell. Kelly, K. (1995) Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-biological Civilization. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley.
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Basics of Translation Studies Cay Dollerup. Iasi, Romania: Institutul European, 2006. Pp. 260. ISBN 973-611412-0 (pbk): t18.00 (including postage). Translation Studies is one of the most dynamic topical spheres of present-day linguistics, the reason for which is seen in the processes of globalisation and internationalisation that brought about a translation business boom. Dollerup’s work is written for these young translators as well as young teachers and Translation Studies students who have recently begun or are planning to begin to follow this challenging, though ‘servile path’, as Nabokov (1959: 97) once termed the translation trade. The book is actually an elaboration of a distance course for the New York University students (p. 8). The scholarly innovativeness of the work lies no doubt in a quite successful attempt to present within a single volume both the most renowned Translation Studies concepts and to offer a concise, but rather comprehensive, excursion into its history. The author points out in particular that interpreting must have existed ever since the first contacts between humans speaking different languages, while translation is approximately 6000 years old (pp. 66, 69). It stands to reason that interpreting, that is oral rendition of utterances, came first, as writing and other adjacent activities, translation for one, originated on the basis of oral speech much much later. There is plenty of exciting and relevant information from the history of translation. For example, Dollerup mentions that Alexander the Great ‘used interpreters on his campaigns. ( . . .) The Roman administration had no less than 130 interpreters for dealing with the Caucasian rulers alone’. He also points out that the number of interpreters considerably increased during the Napoleonic wars because there were ‘young men of the European bourgeoisie in various countries, who had learnt French as part of their education in the 18th century and who were keen to test it, to mediate, to interpret’ between the local population and French troops (pp. 6869). The author’s periodisation of (European) translation history is also noteworthy: the first period lasted until circa 1530, i.e. until the Lutheran Reformation; the second one from circa 1530 until 1790, the epoch of the French Revolution; the third period lasted from the French Revolution to the Second World War: 17891939/40; the fourth period went from 1945 to circa 1970; the fifth one from circa 1970 to circa 1990; and finally, the sixth period has
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lasted from 1990 until the present day. As it follows, the first period was the longest. Isn’t this due to scarce information on the period as compared, for example, to the shortest the fifth one? Anyway, Cay Dollerup’s periodisation serves its purpose. It is theoretically relevant that the author provides new translators with scholarly linguistic information. He writes about the dynamics and instability of cultures and languages, about language families dealing mostly with the Indo-European one and especially touches upon the history of the English language. This kind of knowledge is really important for translators, as many of them badly lack a linguistic background. However, I cannot help objecting to the author’s classification of languages, where he places Estonian in the Balto-Slavic group (p. 26), which in fact can hardly be true, as the language belongs to a Finno-Ugric group. I do believe it is merely a misprint in this case. The author must have meant Latvian and Lithuanian. On the same page, Dollerup mentions that ‘we may talk of British English, American English, Australian English, etc. as different languages’ (p. 26). I am not at all sure that it is worthwhile to consider these variants different languages. To be classified as a language, a variant has to differ systematically from another language (variant) on at least one feature, like the presence of an extra case for nouns in Ukrainian as compared to Russian. Differences in lexis and pronunciation alone are not sufficient to classify language variants as independent separate languages. The very notion of translation is defined by the author as ‘any material which is presented in a linguistic form in a source language and is realized in a linguistic form in a target language’ (p. 81). This position is really praiseworthy in a definitionless desert of scores of papers that manage to go without the definition of the primary notion at all. Dollerup also mentions the following fact that is quite often overlooked by translatologists: today most translation activity does not take place between nations, but within nations. Many countries have ethnic minorities who do not speak the official language, and for that reason a great deal of translation takes place within individual countries and is meant for these ethnic minorities. One of the main perspectives of the book under review is that nobody and nothing is perfect. The author is of the opinion that there is no such thing as an ideal translator and a perfect translation (p. 64), which I believe is true for a number of reasons, e.g. due to cultural and linguistic asymmetry. To support the author’s view, I would like to refer to Ortega y Gasset (1991: 346), who once wrote as follows: Every language is a special equation between what is said and what is unsaid. Every nation keeps silent about one thing to be able to say some other, since it is impossible to say everything. That is why it is so difficult to translate: it is all about saying something in a language that this language is inclined to keep silent of. (my translation) The book is arranged as a practical aid, easy and convenient to work with: each chapter opens up with an abstract, followed by learning objectives. The text of the chapter is subdivided into sections. Finally, a short summary ends up the chapter.
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The topics discussed by Dollerup are of undeniable interest both for practising and future translators. The author considers, among other themes, The Problem of Western Centrality in Translation Studies, Modes of Translation in the Modern World, The Nature of Translation, Translation Approaches, The Translator in Society, Synchrony and Diachrony in Translation Work, Source Texts and Translation Today, etc. The practical tendency is one of the major valuable aspects of this work. The book gains my most favourable references. It may boast of deeply professional items as well as precise and logically immaculate narrative. The book is topical, relevant and up-to-date. It will prove a perfect manual for newcomers in translation and will surely be of assistance to those who have been working in the field for quite a few years and would like to refresh their theory.
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doi: 10.1080/13670050802153921
Vladimir Khairoulline Institute of Law, Ufa, Russia
References Nabokov, V. (1959) The servile path. In R.A. Brower (ed.) On Translation (pp. 97110). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ortega y Gasset, J. (1991) Nishcheta i blesk perevoda [The misery and splendour of translation]. In J. Ortega y Gasset, Chto takoe filosofia? [What Philosophy is About] (pp. 336353). Moscow: Nauka.
Perspectives Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t794297831
Book Review
Online Publication Date: 01 May 2007
To cite this Article (2007)'Book Review',Perspectives,15:2,143 — 151 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13670050802153863 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13670050802153863
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Book Reviews
Downloaded At: 23:26 18 February 2009
Corpora in Translator Education Federico Zanettin, Silvia Bernardini and Dominic Stewart (eds). Manchester: St. Jerome, 2003. Pp. 154. ISBN 1-900650-60-6 (pbk): £19.50. This book describes a unique experience of building, developing and using various corpora in the context of the translation classroom and grew out of presentations at the second Conference on Corpus Use and Learning to Translate held in Italy in November 2000. A variety of corpora are discussed, such as monolingual corpora, comparable bilingual corpora and parallel corpora, including DIY (virtual), specialised and reference corpora, developed specifically with translation needs in mind. The main emphasis is on the use of corpora as teaching aids in the translator-training environment. It is therefore natural that the volume starts with an introduction by Silvia Bernardini, Dominic Stewart and Federico Zanettin, leading experts in the field of corpus research. As editors of the book, they have summed up all the contributions. The first paper, by Jennifer Pearson, demonstrates how aligned parallel corpora can help trainees see what strategies professional translators usually employ to solve different translation problems. In the next contribution, Natalie Ku¨bler shows how the use of various corpora and corpus-query tools contributes to better and easier work of LSP translators. She describes the experiment carried out and argues that the introduction of corpora in the training of translators can radically change their education, as ‘learners are not simply presented with evidence, but are expected to browse corpora for themselves, without the mediation of a teacher who ‘‘digests’’ data and offers generalizations’ (p. 10). Belinda Maia focuses on the construction of disposable corpora on specialised subjects using printed texts and CD-ROMs and suggests that translator students should be trained to construct specialised corpora with the aim of information retrieval and terminology extraction. This is especially of vital importance for minor or ‘less prestigious’ languages, such as Portuguese, where reliable good-quality electronic texts are less available than in major languages. Krista Varantola focuses on the use of disposable, ad hoc corpora in translation. Her study is based on a workshop experiment employing the World Wide Web as a resource for comparable corpora of electronic texts used for lexical and textual management in translation. She concludes that modern translational competence should also include corpus linguistic knowledge, and prospective translators should be taught basic corpus compilation and obtain skills such as search strategies and search word selection, assessment of corpus adequacy and relevancy, evaluation and deductive analysis of a corpus, etc. The paper of Ana Frankenberg-Garcia and Diana Santos is an introduction to the PortugueseEnglish bidirectional parallel corpus Compara, which is an open-ended machine-readable collection of PortugueseEnglish and English Portuguese original texts and translations. They describe its structure, basic 143
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144
Perspectives: Studies in Translatology
principles of text selection and techniques of aligning source texts and translations. Tony McEnery and Paul Baker found out that despite the high level of interest from translators in working with non-indigenous European minority languages, such as Tamil, Hindi, Urdu and Farsi, such languages are still poorly served with corpus/language processing tools in comparison with indigenous languages in Europe. Of special didactic interest is the paper by Lynne Bowker and Peter Bennison describing the development and application of the Student Translation Archive including all translations of the same source text, all translations belonging to the same subject field, etc., and the Student Translation Tracking System (STTS). They are used to select, manage and study the texts translated by students. In particular, the STTS allows a teacher to extract from an archive a corpus of translations of a given source text done by the students and analyse them according to specific criteria, which, for instance, might be very helpful in discussing various versions of translated text segments in a classroom. Although the use of corpus-based methodologies proves to be very important in translation studies, there are, according to Kirsten Malmkjær, some doubts as to how wide the range of their uses is in solving real-life translation problems. She argues that corpus evidence might be misleading in some cases and stifle creative inspiration, and that it is worth exploring ways of using corpora which may seem subversive of standard uses. As is evident from the examples cited, her remarks concerning the need for a cautious use of corpora in translating might be true only of literary translation, where ‘it is sometimes necessary to break a norm instead of obeying it’ (p. 132). All in all, the book under review provides a wealth of information about the standard uses of various corpora as a translator’s resource. It shows how to select electronic texts, compile corpora depending on the specific needs of a translator and use them in solving a variety of linguistic problems. Although the book is primarily intended for researchers and practitioners dealing with corpora in translation education, it is also highly suitable for use as a course textbook. doi: 10.1080/13670050802153863
Valentin Shevchuk Moscow State Linguistic University, Russia
A Handbook for Translator Trainers Dorothy Kelly. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 2005. Pp. 172, with glossary and index. ISBN 1-900650-81-9: £18.00. Kelly’s handbook is neatly interactive, with direct questions to users in shaded frames. It is also suitably repetitive, enacting the sound pedagogical principle that the same point has to be made several times, from different perspectives, for it to sink in. Each chapter begins with a ‘summary and aims’ of what is developed in the subsequent pages. From Chapter 2 onward this is preceded by an outline of
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the various stages involved, not in the translating process, but in the elaboration of a translation course, with relevant sections highlighted.1 Some of these will be improved as trainers get more experienced. All chapters end with suggestions for further reading. The author is rejoicingly aware both of the variety of contexts in which students can be trained to become translators, and of the diversity of approaches that can be used. Some of her recommendations and comments I fully agree with, as for instance the importance of using actual translation commissions, or indeed of involving students in them, or the relative difficulty of ‘general’ texts such as newspaper articles because of the element of creativity, often involving the use of metaphors, that students have to fully understand and learn how to recreate in their target texts. Her first chapter, however, which sets out to introduce major approaches and is necessarily highly synthetic, is at times slightly distorting. While she does mention the´orie du sens in connection with Delisle, it could be useful to remind readers of some of the tenets of those proponents of Ecole de Paris (ESIT), among whom Seleskovitch and Lederer, including a key (and mindboggling) notion: that of deverbalisation, the dissociation of what the text means from words in any language.2 This being said, Delisle’s exercises on specific translation hurdles can be most useful in class. Kelly’s comment on Robinson’s view of the translating process is somewhat intriguing. Robinson does indeed contrast two complementary aspects, namely the freewheeling subconscious and consequently fairly fast processing from one language into the other, and the systematic checking and background researching. I very much doubt whether they can be assimilated into ‘slow academic ( . . .) learning on the one hand, and fast, real-world learning’ (p. 17), as the distinction is not between ‘academic’ and ‘real-world’, but between which switches we activate in our minds. Kelly’s second chapter examines the expectations and constraints that shape a course programme ‘upstream’, as it were. In the definition of what translators do, given by the National Centre for Languages (UK), the final words (‘the final translated document should read as clearly as it did in the original’) ought in many cases be replaced by ‘should read more clearly than it did in the original’: we are all familiar with disastrous original texts. Another important aspect in the ‘interpersonal competences’ mentioned on pages 33 and 35 is thus ‘diplomatic skill’ (the art of explaining that the text is greatly improved and should be revised in the original too, without hurting the author’s feelings). This is probably what is meant by the sentence: ‘Students will be able to (. . .) communicate their opinions in such a way as to avoid or resolve potential conflict’ (p. 39). In the third chapter, the author comments on the growing heterogeneity of the student population and contrasts different profiles and expectations among trainers. The fourth chapter considers various possible curricula, taking the new Bologna expectations and the POSI (short for ‘PraxisOrientierte StudienInhalte’) recommendations into account. Chapter 5 turns to resources, including the kind of rooms where teaching takes place, textbooks, computer facilities, mobility programmes and work placements. Chapter 6 presents various teaching methods; how to use group work and
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peer tutoring, for instance. Chapter 7 (‘Sequencing’) inevitably dovetails with Chapters 5 and 6 in its description of choices trainers have to make, including their choice of texts. Chapter 8 discusses methods of assessment; it suggests intelligent tips such as asking students to provide a ‘bibliography of resources used, with comments on usefulness, accessibility, reliability and so on’ (p. 135), giving students the possibility to hand in a translation portfolio including a piece of market research and glossaries and contrasts grading references, either to a notional perfect translation or to a statistical norm. This chapter ends on how to evaluate the course, which leads to the final chapter on the ‘need for trainer training and trainer competence’ (p. 150). In many respects, this is a useful little guidebook for teachers in translation programmes by someone who (from Chapter 2 onward) obviously knows what she is on about.
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doi: 10.1080/13670050802153889
Christine Pagnoulle Lie`ge, Belgium
Notes 1.
2.
Identify social needs/Formulate outcomes/Identify student profile and needs/ Design course content/Identify/acquire resources (trainer training)/Design activities/Design assessment/Design course evaluation/Implementation/Quality enhancement. I quite understand that translators have to move away from the words used in the source text, but can meaning exist where there are no words at all?
Translation and Globalization Michael Cronin. London: Routledge, 2003. Pp. 208. ISBN 978-0-415-27064-9 (hbk): $145.00. ISBN 978-0-415-27065-6 (pbk): $45.95. This is one of the impressive books that immediately makes one realise the importance of translational activities in cross-cultural communication in this ‘global’ age and that highlights the various cultural factors that have an impact on translation studies. Michael Cronin, dean of the Joint Faculty of Humanities and Director of the Center for Translation and Textual Studies at Dublin City University, Ireland, presents us with the most controversial issues of language policies in a globalised world, innovatively explores the interaction of translation practice, the global economy, the global politics and today’s multicultural and multilinguistic realities, and creatively offers new ways of understanding the role of the translator in globalised societies and economies. Drawing on numerous examples and case studies from Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, the author argues that translation, and by extension translation studies, is ideally placed to explain the two opposite transnational movements: globalisation and anti-globalisation. Cronin shows why translation is central to debates about language and cultural identity, and why consideration of the role of translation and translators is indispensable to safeguarding and promoting linguistic and cultural diversity in human history.
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The book begins with an introduction which serves as a guide to the comprehension of the work. Its five chapters discuss the issue of translation in a world transformed by the forces of globalisation. In Chapter 1, ‘Translation and the Global Economy’, the author explores the major changes in the economy and information technology over the last three decades which have impacted on translation. In this chapter, the author focuses on the following points: (1) the change of economic factors will dramatically influence the context of translation activity; (2) technological tools in translation are not simply convenient adjuncts to the activity of translators; they are central to the definitions of what they do and always have done; (3) the role of social factors in conjunction with the technical dimension of translation is identified not simply as a means of instant communication but as a channel of transmission over time; (4) language diversity is an essential element of plurality, which aids in understanding the functioning and consequences of translation; (5) genuine intercultural understanding is impeded by aggressively monoglot views of the world. In Chapter 2, ‘Globalization and New Translation Paradigms’, the author deals with contemporary models of translation organisation and asks what the role of the translator might be in the 21st century. In this chapter, the author mainly investigates the concept of network and how the properties of networks can be explored to describe features of translation activity worldwide in the global age. Here, Cronin points to the decisive shift from ‘centralized data storage and processing to net-worked, interactive powersharing’ (Castells, 1996: 45). In this connection, three aspects are highlighted: firstly, a network is capable of being extended indefinitely; it is open and multiedged rather than closed and centralised (Kelly, 1995: 2527). Correspondingly, new elements can lead to restructuring without collapse. Secondly, networks have insides and outsides. That is to say, the potential openness of the network does not mean that it is open to all. The roles of the gatekeeper and the switch deciding who gets included in and who is excluded from translation networks are important, and the concern with exclusion has been a powerful mobilising factor for the anti-globalisation movements. Thirdly, the logic of the network is greater than the power of its individual nodes (Castells, 1996: 193). In other words, the connectedness of nodes is what permits their flexible and dynamic response to changing situations, but it is shared goals and values which allow for a level of structural coherence in the network itself (p. 45). In Chapter 3, ‘Globalization and the New Geography of Translation’, the author investigates the changing geography of translation practice, and how translation in Ireland has been affected by contemporary globalisation. The author begins with global definitions and points out that the concept of ‘globalisation’ has been interpreted differently by theoreticians such as Robertson, Friedman and Hall. The concept, as used by the author, refers to ‘a critical theory of globalization that encompasses global movements and exchanges of people, commodities and ideas, and a politico-historical approach to changes in global processes’ (p. 77), and the perspective of globalisation means that ‘our translation histories are no longer confined to the internal experience of the territorially bounded nation-state but include the
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manifold translation activities of a country’s diaspora’ (p. 78). Cronin then moves on to discuss the Irish experience in the context of a transnational translation history, and the specific technical and economic reasons for Ireland’s emergence as one of the most important centres in the world for the translation of computer materials in the global context. The extent to which the type of translation practised in late modern Ireland favours or militates against cultural diversity is then considered. Taking the issue beyond Ireland, the author analyses the censorship of translation, a phenomenon which has often been ignored. Finally, the author points out that as more and more people become inhabitants of global cities, the issue of translation has been raised as part of an argument for a new, polyglossic civility. In Chapter 4, ‘Globalization and the New Politics of Translation’, the author explores the key features of globalisation which influence translation politics, namely, time, the rise of supranational institutions and organisations, automation and the economic power of specific languages. The author stresses the following three points: (1) the implications for translators with differential access to technology in markets and societies are increasingly driven by considerations of time; (2) the relation between automation and creativity in translation practice are complementary rather than antagonistic; (3) the translator in the age of globalisation should be much more self-aware and sensitive towards phenomena such as the dangers of a new ‘colonialism’ (the spread of sameness). In Chapter 5 ‘Translation and Minority Languages in a Global Setting’, the author examines the importance and strategy of considering minority languages in various areas such as training and research, other than merely literary translation, in order to retain linguistic and cultural diversity. As the author puts it, ‘the relative indifference of translation studies to the situation of minority languages is considered alongside the differing responses of a minority language to translation, seen alternatively as a threat or a godsend’ (p. 5). Viewed from a nomadic translation perspective, travelling in a minority language is seen a way of illuminating translation dilemmas in the contemporary world. Last but not least, the author proposes a new translation ecology which attaches due importance to particularism and place without a contradictory retreat to ethnocentric smugness. In its systematic and creative analysis of the current debate on the role of translation and translation studies, this book can be considered as an insightful and innovative contribution to both translation studies and cultural studies. The discussion of translation tools, localisation and hegemony, the censorship of translation experience and minority languages, and the foregrounding of cultural factors of the global village may all fascinate anyone with an interest in translation studies, cultural studies and other related academic disciplines. Most importantly, central issues such as ‘translational activity in the context of cultural openness’, ‘diversity vs. hegemony in translation’ and ‘who gets included in and who is excluded from translation networks’ will inspire not merely translation theorists, but all those engaged in translation practices. To conclude, this book is highly stimulating. Its theoretical creativity, its case studies and its useful ideas regarding practical translation will make it a
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valuable reference book for both translators and people concerned with the future of our world’s languages and cultures. doi: 10.1080/13670050802153897
Fan Min School of Foreign Languages and Literature Shandong University
References Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell. Kelly, K. (1995) Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-biological Civilization. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley.
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Basics of Translation Studies Cay Dollerup. Iasi, Romania: Institutul European, 2006. Pp. 260. ISBN 973-611412-0 (pbk): t18.00 (including postage). Translation Studies is one of the most dynamic topical spheres of present-day linguistics, the reason for which is seen in the processes of globalisation and internationalisation that brought about a translation business boom. Dollerup’s work is written for these young translators as well as young teachers and Translation Studies students who have recently begun or are planning to begin to follow this challenging, though ‘servile path’, as Nabokov (1959: 97) once termed the translation trade. The book is actually an elaboration of a distance course for the New York University students (p. 8). The scholarly innovativeness of the work lies no doubt in a quite successful attempt to present within a single volume both the most renowned Translation Studies concepts and to offer a concise, but rather comprehensive, excursion into its history. The author points out in particular that interpreting must have existed ever since the first contacts between humans speaking different languages, while translation is approximately 6000 years old (pp. 66, 69). It stands to reason that interpreting, that is oral rendition of utterances, came first, as writing and other adjacent activities, translation for one, originated on the basis of oral speech much much later. There is plenty of exciting and relevant information from the history of translation. For example, Dollerup mentions that Alexander the Great ‘used interpreters on his campaigns. ( . . .) The Roman administration had no less than 130 interpreters for dealing with the Caucasian rulers alone’. He also points out that the number of interpreters considerably increased during the Napoleonic wars because there were ‘young men of the European bourgeoisie in various countries, who had learnt French as part of their education in the 18th century and who were keen to test it, to mediate, to interpret’ between the local population and French troops (pp. 6869). The author’s periodisation of (European) translation history is also noteworthy: the first period lasted until circa 1530, i.e. until the Lutheran Reformation; the second one from circa 1530 until 1790, the epoch of the French Revolution; the third period lasted from the French Revolution to the Second World War: 17891939/40; the fourth period went from 1945 to circa 1970; the fifth one from circa 1970 to circa 1990; and finally, the sixth period has
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lasted from 1990 until the present day. As it follows, the first period was the longest. Isn’t this due to scarce information on the period as compared, for example, to the shortest the fifth one? Anyway, Cay Dollerup’s periodisation serves its purpose. It is theoretically relevant that the author provides new translators with scholarly linguistic information. He writes about the dynamics and instability of cultures and languages, about language families dealing mostly with the Indo-European one and especially touches upon the history of the English language. This kind of knowledge is really important for translators, as many of them badly lack a linguistic background. However, I cannot help objecting to the author’s classification of languages, where he places Estonian in the Balto-Slavic group (p. 26), which in fact can hardly be true, as the language belongs to a Finno-Ugric group. I do believe it is merely a misprint in this case. The author must have meant Latvian and Lithuanian. On the same page, Dollerup mentions that ‘we may talk of British English, American English, Australian English, etc. as different languages’ (p. 26). I am not at all sure that it is worthwhile to consider these variants different languages. To be classified as a language, a variant has to differ systematically from another language (variant) on at least one feature, like the presence of an extra case for nouns in Ukrainian as compared to Russian. Differences in lexis and pronunciation alone are not sufficient to classify language variants as independent separate languages. The very notion of translation is defined by the author as ‘any material which is presented in a linguistic form in a source language and is realized in a linguistic form in a target language’ (p. 81). This position is really praiseworthy in a definitionless desert of scores of papers that manage to go without the definition of the primary notion at all. Dollerup also mentions the following fact that is quite often overlooked by translatologists: today most translation activity does not take place between nations, but within nations. Many countries have ethnic minorities who do not speak the official language, and for that reason a great deal of translation takes place within individual countries and is meant for these ethnic minorities. One of the main perspectives of the book under review is that nobody and nothing is perfect. The author is of the opinion that there is no such thing as an ideal translator and a perfect translation (p. 64), which I believe is true for a number of reasons, e.g. due to cultural and linguistic asymmetry. To support the author’s view, I would like to refer to Ortega y Gasset (1991: 346), who once wrote as follows: Every language is a special equation between what is said and what is unsaid. Every nation keeps silent about one thing to be able to say some other, since it is impossible to say everything. That is why it is so difficult to translate: it is all about saying something in a language that this language is inclined to keep silent of. (my translation) The book is arranged as a practical aid, easy and convenient to work with: each chapter opens up with an abstract, followed by learning objectives. The text of the chapter is subdivided into sections. Finally, a short summary ends up the chapter.
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The topics discussed by Dollerup are of undeniable interest both for practising and future translators. The author considers, among other themes, The Problem of Western Centrality in Translation Studies, Modes of Translation in the Modern World, The Nature of Translation, Translation Approaches, The Translator in Society, Synchrony and Diachrony in Translation Work, Source Texts and Translation Today, etc. The practical tendency is one of the major valuable aspects of this work. The book gains my most favourable references. It may boast of deeply professional items as well as precise and logically immaculate narrative. The book is topical, relevant and up-to-date. It will prove a perfect manual for newcomers in translation and will surely be of assistance to those who have been working in the field for quite a few years and would like to refresh their theory.
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doi: 10.1080/13670050802153921
Vladimir Khairoulline Institute of Law, Ufa, Russia
References Nabokov, V. (1959) The servile path. In R.A. Brower (ed.) On Translation (pp. 97110). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ortega y Gasset, J. (1991) Nishcheta i blesk perevoda [The misery and splendour of translation]. In J. Ortega y Gasset, Chto takoe filosofia? [What Philosophy is About] (pp. 336353). Moscow: Nauka.
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