Reviews

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

Reviews Xu Jianzhong a a Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, China Online Publication Date: 13 April 2006

To cite this Article Jianzhong, Xu(2006)'Reviews',Perspectives,13:4,297 — 299 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09076760608669000 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09076760608669000

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.

297

REVIEWS The reviews are ordered alphabetically according to the names of authors or editors.

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

Branchadell, Albert & Lovell Margaret West (eds.). 2005. Less Translated Languages. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Vii + 416 pp. ISBN 90-272-1664-9 (Eur) & 158811-480-5 (US). Price: Euros: 130.00; $ 156.00. Less Translated Languages explores a topic largely overlooked. There is no entry “less translated languages” in Mona Baker’s Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (1998), nor in Mark Shu�leworth and Moire Cowie’s Dictionary of Translation Studies (1997), and Fang Mengzhi’s Dictionary of Translation Studies (2004). “Less translated languages” refers to “all those languages that are less o�en the source of translation in the international exchange of linguistic goods, regardless of the number of people using these languages”(1). This definition tells us that well-known and widely diffused languages such as Chinese and Arabic as well as long-neglected minority languages such as Catalan (in Spain) belong to this category. By drawing a�ention to them, this collection draws a�ention in Translation Studies to an area that needs to be further studied. The book is a selection of articles from the conference “Interculturality and Translation: Less Translated Languages”, and emphasises languages such as Catalan, “a significant Western minority language that remains largely unresearched in mainstream Translation Studies” (1). The book is divided into thematic parts. ‘English: The Dominant Language’, focuses on English and comprises five articles. It is somewhat contradictory that the ‘most translated’ should be studied in this collection. The first article is Anthony Pym and Grzegorz Chrupala’s ‘The quantitative analysis of translation flows in the age of an international language’; it questions that the great disparity between what is translated into English (which is ‘less’) and what is translated out of it (which is ‘more’) is a sign of genuine cultural hegemony. By means of concrete data, they conclude that the key is the sheer size in the number of people speaking English. Vilelmini Sosonis’ ‘Multilingualism in Europe: Blessing or curse?’ explores the multilingualism of the European Union. The European Union has a policy of linguistic equality, but, nevertheless English and French are “more equal” than e.g. Finnish and Estonian. Hassan Hamzé’s contribution ‘An example of linguistic submission: The translation of affixes and Greco-Latin formants into Arabic’ is a plea against a systematic application of Arabic equivalents for French or English affixes which he considers as “linguistic submission”. Nobel Perdu Honeyman’s ‘From Arabic to other languages through English’ is based on his translation of the Kitáb-I-Aqdas into Spanish from English and using the Arabic original as a means of control; he claims that in some cases, relay translation functions well. The last article in this part, Maria D. Oltra Ripoll’s ‘The translation of cultural references in the cinema’ claims that a screen translator (from English to Spanish) must pay much a�ention to cultural references and she then analyses the techniques for translating cultural references. This aspect of translation work poses great challenges to translators, especially today with the trend toward globalization and cultural nationalism. There are five articles in the section dealing with ‘Minority languages: Facing inequality in the translation arena’. The first three discuss aspects of “preliminary norms”, specifically in “translation policy”. Oscar Diaz Fouces discusses three levels of language policy in the European Union: the official languages of the member-states, the minority languages such as Breton and Catalan, and the languages of immigrants. He puts forward proposals for translation policies that will improve the status of minority languages at the second and third levels. Marta García González addresses social factors that determine the use of translation in specific minority-language communities of Western Europe. Based on communicative situations requiring translation and on the social, cultural, and political conditions that have a bearing on the presence of translation activity, she presents a descriptive model for determining translation out of and into these languages. Diaz Fouces and González both consider translation as a tool of resistance to cultural imposition, whereas Albert Branchadell’s ‘ Mandatory Translation’ examines an example of translation imposed on minority language speakers, which is a study of the linguistic rights of linguistic minorities. Although it violates what he terms “linguistic security”, that is the right of individuals to carry out their activities in their own language, Branchadell finds that, under special circumstances, Catalan speakers have to translate the explanation for their acts into the national language, Spanish. Eva Espasa’s ‘Theatre and translation: Unequal exchange in a supermarket of cultures’ probes inequality re-

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

298

2005. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 13: 4

lated to translation. She considers the asymmetrical flux between Eastern and Western stages as “a supermarket of cultures”, and she reviews the “interculturalism in stage translation over the last twenty years, with a view of translation either as enrichment or as appropriation” (137) that challenges the logic of the global supermarket. Anna Aguilar-Amat and Jean-Bosco Botsho’s ‘Obscured cultures: The case of sub-Saharan Africa’ tackles a “non-translated language”, the extreme case of a “less translated language”. The article introduces an innovative neurobiological approach to the issue of interculturality and translation, and reflects on the cognitive processes of adaptable individuals and translators. Part 3 deals with translation from less translated cultures and languages. The first articles are devoted to “minor literatures”. Using African literature in colonial languages, Gore�i López Heredia demonstrates “that the translation of literary creation by African writers wri�en in colonial languages is mainly a process of translating silences” (166), and she argues that the translation of texts wri�en in colonial languages such as English, French, and Portuguese, should count as a typical example of translation of less translated languages. Using both linguistic and cultural studies, Andres Xose Salter Iglesias’ ‘Translating Mia Couto: A particular view of Portuguese in Mozambique’, emphasizes the linguistic difficulties for translation arising from a “process of miscegenation” (177) between standard Portuguese and the creativity of Mozambican Portuguese, which is in a sense aggravated by Couto’s ability to “disorganise the language” (177). Dora Sales Salvador’s ‘Translational passages: Indian fiction in English as transcreation?’ discusses a case “frenetic” translation, India, in which eighteen languages are officially recognized in the constitution and more than 1,600 others that are spoken. Indian writers choose to write in the former colonial language (English), and “what Indian writers do is to transcreate into English, that is, use English as a medium of creative expression, trying to transmit their stories, cultural values and worldview in this language” (194). The three last articles in this section examine translation of works wri�en in nonWestern languages into Western ones. Referring to the Spanish translations from Sanskrit or Tibetan versions and relay translation via French, Nicole Martínez Melis’ ‘The Bodhicaryāvatāra: A Buddhist treatise translated into Western languages’ claims that translation has contributed substantially to the spread of Buddhism in the Spanishspeaking parts of the West – a conspicuous case of cross-cultural relations. Leticia Herrero’s ‘Regional Indian literature in English: Translation or recreation?’ is about Indian fiction that is wri�en in Tamil and susequently translated into English. In order to reach the goal of making Western readers savour Tamil culture, the publisher (Macmillan) invite two Tamil translators to do the translation instead of employing British translators. It is a way to have national literary works reach international markets. This part is rounded off Sara Rovira-Esteva’s ‘What do we leave behind when failing to translate a Chinese dead metaphor?’ She addresses the difficulties of rendering Chinese measured words into such Western languages as English and Catalan. It argues for a cognitive approach integrating Cognitive Linguistics and Translation Studies to this linguistic phenomenon, and argues that Chinese measured words are powerful tools for recreating metaphorical expressions that offer translators a way of creating their own metaphorical expressions so as to convey the full force of the Chinese text. The last Part ‘Catalan: Translating into a less translated language’’ focuses on Catalan, a prominent Western minority language in Spain largely unexplored in mainstream Translation Studies. However, all Catalans understand Spanish, so why bother about translations? In his article, Montserreat Bacardí tries to give preliminary answers to this question by means of an examination of translation from Spanish to Catalan in the 20th century. Cristina García de Toro’s ‘Translation between Spanish and Catalan today’ focuses on translation between Spanish and Catalán at all levels, trying to find the regularities and reasons that govern translation. García also explores the issue of translations between Spain’s other peripheral languages (Galician and Basque into Catalan) which deserves being researched because of the dearth of studies of translation between minority languages. Irene Llop Jordana’s ‘Translation from Hebrew into Catalan: A current assessment’ expounds a case of translation between minority languages (Hebrew and Catalan) by reviewing the activities in the 20th century. Although they are two minority languages, Hebrew is a state language today. The article tries to answer such questions as which authors and genres have been translated, who the translators are and how they worked. Translation from Hebrew into Catalan comprises the Bible, medieval works, medieval documents and contemporary literature. The selection finishes with a symposium on six significant translators from dominant languages (mostly English and French, but Italian and Russian as well) into Catalan. The contributors to this symposium emphasize the role of translation in the (re)creation of

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

Reviews.

299

literary language in a minority context (Catalan) and more generally in the process of linguistic “normalisation”. The translators discussed are only six out of many translators who have contributed and are contributing to the continuity of Catalan language and culture by means of translation. The term “less translated language” serves as a fine background to “the cultural turn, the power turn and nation-building” (1), an approach integrating linguistics and cultural studies, and heralding a new development of Translation Studies in an area that deserves exploration. According to the definition of the book, Chinese belongs to the less translated languages. It explains why China a�aches great importance not only to translation into, but also out of, Chinese at all educational levels. However, embracing the thinking of Westerners who learn Chinese at a ripe old age, Chinese usually think that their language is hard to learn. Therefore, the Chinese authorities encourage two-way translation. It is not easy for Chinese to do translation into English from Chinese, and only a few outstanding scholars have been able to do so. Anthony Pym and Grzegorz Chrupala’s article provide another explanation why Chinese belongs to the less translated languages. It is in the interest of all nations that the inequality or unbalance in cultural exchange should be addressed. I believe that nationals speaking less translated languages ought to try their best to use predominant languages such as English to disseminate their own cultural heritage to the rest of the world in order to narrow the cultural gap between the less translated languages and the more translated languages. I appreciate the argument that “the translation texts wri�en in colonial languages such as English, French or Portuguese should count as a paradigmatic example of translation of less translated languages” (14). It proves the claim that translation is a kind of (re)writing or (re)creation. It is good for the publisher, Macmillan, in India to rely on Indian translators to do the translation from Indian literatures in order to share the source culture with Western readers. However, it might be even be�er to have translations done in cooperation between Indian and western translators with the aim of mastering the essence of the original and making the translated acceptable to the recipients. The purpose of disseminating by means of translation is to make the recipients understand the essence of the source culture. Accordingly, the acceptability to target readers should be taken into consideration. The book presents the two-sided nature of translation, stressing its “positive” contribution. Where there is a “locus of imperialism”, there is a “site of resistance and nation building” (7). “More generally, if translation has helped the development of major national languages and literatures, it has also helped the development of minority national languages and national literatures” (7). It is appropriate to make this assessment, as there are two sides to the coin. On behalf of all readers of the book, I wish to thank the translators who rendered the articles into English, the more translated language, since they have enabled us appreciate the non-English articles. They have set an example for the scholars in less translated languages. Xu Jianzhong, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300191, China. ********** Chu Weidong. 2003. 商业翻译导论 [Business Translation]. Wuhan: Hubei Education Publishing House (277 Qingnian Road, Wuhan 430015, China). X + 278 pp. ISBN 7-5351-33665. Price: RMB 24.00. Translation makes global co-operation possible. With China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation, the number of exchanges between China and other nations is increasing. This in turn has promoted the rapid development of the country’s translation industry. This large-scale translation industry is a new phenomenon in China and thus is in urgent need of study. This book is a first step towards addressing this gap. Blending references to commerce and translation, this book is innovative in the Chinese context, since Chinese Translation Studies usually centres on theories and techniques and therefore neglects commercial aspects. Business translation is completely different from literary translation in terms of connotation and localisation. “Business translation”, as it is defined in this book, provides translation products and services to consumers, whereas literary translation is ideally supposed to render the ‘same’ message in another language. Business translation shares many features with other types of translation, but

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

300

2005. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 13: 4

also has characteristics of its own, rules concerning approaches, criteria applied, quality control, etc. Business translation is different from another non-literary field, namely that of commercial translation, because it is broader; although it also includes commercial activities, only a small fraction of commercial translation is also business translation. The author describes and explains phenomena, processes, and the rules of business translation. Studies of business translation belong to the category of “applied” Translation Studies. Using “applied” translation as its starting point, the book explores translation from the perspective of business operation, which, as mentioned, also includes commerce. As a commercial service, the core product in business translation is the translation product. The book is divided into two sections: commerce and translation. ‘Commerce’ refers to the marketing and operational processes, quality control, and useful professional information (such as translation tools, journals, websites, etc.). ‘Translation’ explores the basic issues of translation, schools of translation, and translation techniques. It discusses the marketing, professional norms, the rights and duties of translators and interpreters, and ways of improving professional performance. Furthermore, it presents efficient programme management, competitive strategies, pricing, translation contracts, etc. The book goes on to address the professional tools, challenges, and the many new factors that must be taken into account in today’s globalised translation work. The book explores business translation from two approaches, namely that of Translation Studies and commerce. The former is comprehensive, and in all the translation activities involved, some ‘rules’ must be followed. The author proposes a specific theory for this approach based on linguistics, communication theory, social semiotics, etc. By considering translation to be a service or product, the ‘commercial approach’ comprises all the aspects of the product, including commercial environments, the management of human resources and service processes, marketing, legal problems, etc. The book expounds on aspects of business translation and describes the processes of both translation and the marketing it involves. Translation Studies usually stresses the translation activity and centres on linguistic, cultural, and aesthetic aspects, etc. However, as a special field, business translation possesses its own characteristics, which are different from those of general translation. For example, the criterion for successful business translation is not a moral criterion (such as Fu Yan’s (1896) notions of “faithfulness”, “comprehensibility” and “elegance” (see Luo, this issue)) or an aesthetic criterion (such as “equivalence”), but a feasible contract criterion: business translation offers commercial services that include traditional translation processes, but it also comprises translation marketing, service objectivity, varieties, and package, quality control system and ‘a�er service’. It is only when the Translation Service Provider and the client are fully aware of these components that business translation can be fully successful. The book proposes fascinating new ideas. The term “Translation Service Provider”, which o�en appears, is a brilliant example of the awareness and normalisation of translation service in industry and business and can be used for consciousness-raising and further scholarly study. The author considers the quality and efficiency of translation services, the outcome of interaction between the Translation Service Provider and the client or, as he terms it, the “Translation Consumer”. The relation between the two is close, which means that the consumer should take some responsibility for the translator’s (provider’s) product. The author submits that, unlike ‘ordinary’ translation, the basis for business translation should be a contract criterion, and he proposes that translation quality is ensured by means of a process control. There are extensive and useful appendixes. They include consumer questions and answers, a brief survey of translation firms and websites around the world, journals, publications, and electronic fora for professional translation, and translation organisations. This book on business translation will help to establish professional norms in the field and offers guidance for Translation Service Providers (professional and freelance translators and interpreters), translation consumers, and others involved in the translation industry. The book is extremely useful and it also opens up a new field for investigation in Translation Studies. Xu Jianzhong, Tianjin University of Technology, China. **********

Reviews.

301

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

Fawce�, Peter. 1997. Translation and Language. Linguistic Theories Explained. Manchester: St. Jerome. 160 pp. ISBN 190065007. Price: £ 19.50. Like the methods of so many others, Peter Fawce�’s approach to translation is linguistic, but it differs in its application of linguistics to translation, mostly for neophytes and students of translation. The overall tone of this book is light, and allows for a smooth read. The book examines linguistic theories chronologically and therefore opens with Saussure to discuss basic issues in the relations between ‘langue’-‘parole’, ‘signified’ and ‘signifier’, collocations from the perspective of sociolinguistics, and pragmatics. Then the author turns to phonetics in interpreting and dubbing with due exemplification. Even small units of translation such as phonemes are successfully related to professional conditions: deadlines and translation fees. (12) He also addresses word meanings in different cultures and conceptual knowledge in the practice of translation. (22) Translation techniques and taxonomies are examined in theoretical models in the Russian, the Canadian, and the American approaches. In accordance with the framework of Descriptive Translation Studies, Fawce� emphasises product-oriented techniques that can improve translation competence and make beginners more free. (52) He addresses “equivalence” and questions traditional models as represented by Koller, Catford, Nida, and Komissarov. He points out that, in the final analysis, they proceed in a hierarchal order leading to equivalence. He finds contradictions in Catford’s concern with formal correspondence rather than textual equivalency. He considers Nida’s model revolutionary in its consideration of social contextual functions, but eventually concludes that all the models are restricted. In “Beyond the Word”, Fawce� tries to uncover why linguistic theories fail to go beyond the word and sentence level. He looks at generative grammar, which affected e.g. Nida, Shweitser, and Malone and claims that none of them explain professional translators’ behaviour and mental processes when they translate hundreds of pages on autopilot. (69) For all his criticism, he concludes that generative grammar and Translation Studies correspond to computer approaches, with terms such as “input”, “treatment”, and “output”. In “Text Structure”, which is exemplified by sentences, he emphasises translators’ idiosyncracies when they transfer semantic content into target languages without regard for source-text pa�erns. On the other hand, he also stresses that translators’ failure to reproduce source-language thematic structures can disrupt the coherence of translations, and exemplifies this with translations of contemporary writers including Milan Kundera and Gabrial García Márquez (89-90). In general, Fawce� warns that translation theories ignore the linguistic side of translations. Therefore, he proceeds to explain the relationship between translators and their products in sociological terms. Finally, he looks at “Psycholinguistics” in relation to translation as a mental activity and in terms of its relevance to theories of communication. Beginning with “relevance theory”, he correlates translator competence with minimax principles. Fawce�’s examination of translation and language explores their mutual relationship and may serve courses in Translation Studies. The book may also appeal to theorists from other disciplines who want to examine the relation between translation and language, since Fawce� a�empts not only to explain reasons for translation strategies (e.g. disambiguation, naturalisation etc.), but also justifies them as textual features. Therefore, he is in favour of systemic comparisons between translations and source texts as the basis for Translation Studies, at the same time warning against formalism, which is opposed to the spirit of ‘parole’. Mine Yazıcı, Istanbul University, Turkey. ********** Hansen, Gyde & Kirsten Malmkjær & Daniel Gile (eds.). 2004. Claims, Changes and Challenges in Translation Studies. Selected contributions from the EST Congress, Copenhagen 2001. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 318 pp. ISBN: 902721656 (hb). Price: € 99. ISBN: 1588115097 (hb). Price: $ 119. This is a selection of contributions from the 3rd Congress of the European Society for Translation Studies (EST) in 2001. The articles cover a variety of topics, ranging from

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

302

2005. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 13: 4

translation universals to the specifics of the translation profession and from simultaneous and community interpreting to the child as language mediator, but are they are united by their interest in the investigation of translation. The articles are not formally grouped in sections but are arranged according to thematic interests. The first thematic focus is the theoretical concept of translation universals. Andrew Chesterman departs from a series of hypotheses about translation universals. He identifies explanatory hypotheses (that suggest explanations for a certain phenomenon), descriptive (that establish the distinguishing features of something), predictive (that predict the phenomenon following certain conditions and which test explanatory and descriptive hypotheses) and interpretive hypotheses (claims about what something means and how it can be interpreted). He dwells more on contemporary descriptive research and its descriptive universals, among which he distinguishes two linguistic relations, with two corresponding types of translation universals: S-universals, dealing with the processing of the source text in translation and T-universals concerning the way translators process the target language. He concludes that “what ultimately ma�ers is perhaps not the universals, which we can never finally confirm anyway, but new knowledge of the pa�erns, and pa�erns of pa�erns, which helps us to make sense of what we are looking at” (11). Gideon Toury looks at intertwined aspects of the search for translation universals - where they could be located (neither at too local a level, nor at a too global one), the format of the universals when formulated, and the procedures by which they can be identified as potential universals. In his view, the universals format should be probabilistic and conditioned, rather than deterministic and it should be arrived at by combining top-down and bo�om-up research approaches. Outi Paloposki and Kaisa Koskinen focus on one specific candidate for universals in translation, namely that retranslations are less domesticating than first translations. They state that the retranslation hypothesis is based on the assumption that a foreign element introduced in the target culture is more easily assimilated if it is adapted, whereas retranslation deals with something less foreign. They analyze cases of literary translation and retranslation from English, German, and French into Finnish and find evidence that contradicts the hypothesis. They conclude that retranslation is affected by many factors which are not covered by the hypothesis, such as publishers, target audiences, book formats, illustrations accompanying the text and, last but not least, the translators themselves. Radegundis Stolze highlights the relationship between translation theory and hermeneutic language philosophy. She claims that the source text activates the translator’s knowledge base, therefore comprehension depends on the translator’s knowledge base and its adequacy. Hence, the traditional horizontal concept of translation must be changed in favour of an approach centering around the translator: “the relation is between the translator and the message, not between texts in various cultures” (39). Translation is an open process towards the best solution and the translator is a text producer in a social situation. Many contributors concentrate on linguistic issues. Pál Heltai examines ready made language and evaluates English-Hungarian non-literary translation from a lexicological and socio-linguistic point of view. He asserts that while “emphasis on creativity may be justified in the case of literary translation, it is less valid for technical translation in which ... routinized, automatic language processes, involving the use of ready-made language acquire a significant role” (58).The immediate effect is that the translator’s phraseological competence must include mastery of ready-made language in both the source and target language. Hanne Korzen observes problems arising from the translation of free adjuncts from Danish into French, and concludes that, since it is constrained by a set of relationships between source and target language, translation is not an autonomous process. She exemplifies this by citing the rules for translating the free adjuncts. Michael Schreiber claims that contrastive studies is not relevant to Translation Studies by itself. In his study, he considers German, French, Italian, Spanish, and English. He stresses the value of linguistic Translation Studies as the bridge between contrastive analysis and general translation theory and oriented towards finding solutions to translation problems. Concentrating on English and Spanish, Patrick Zabalbeascoa presents a binary tree diagram illustrating all the possibilities for the translation of metaphor, humour, and rhymes. This structure permits the observation of regularities and translation strategies, thus helping identify the norms behind translation. Nike Pokorn challenges the myth of native speaker competence in translation theory.

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

Reviews.

303

In her study she used seven fragments from English translations of Slovene texts, translated by English or Slovene natives or mixed pairs of translators. She presented the texts to native speakers of English and asked them to decide whether the translators were native speakers of English or not. Many respondents could not identify the native translators. Therefore she maintains that the definition of the native speaker is biased and that theorists should not depart in their quest from the innate qualities that an ideal native speaker would possess. Kirsten Malmkjær departs from a case study of translations from Danish into English of several Hans Christian Andersen stories to investigate shi�s and to draw a clear border line between motivated choice and error in translation. She claims that choice is characterised by semantic pa�erning, whereas error is characterized by graphemic and phonemic pa�erning. Thorsten Schröter narrows the range of language shi�s in order to focus on the translation of humour, particularly in language play. He examines six British and American comedies, both dubbed and subtitled, and identifies strategies for translation of humour from English into German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and French. He draws quantitative comparisons between different versions of the same film and concludes that there is approximately 30% less humour in the target text than in the source text. The translation profession receives a�ention from several contributors. John Milton addresses the issue of the relationship between translators and academia and ponders on the relevance of scholarly studies of translation for practical translation work. He reports on two surveys carried out in Brasil, both confirming the gap between scholars and professionals. He suggests that the academia should be aware of the needs of professional translators and provide training in a variety of translation fields or set the standards for professional translation. Professional translators’ migration to other work areas, such as technical communication, is Hanna Risku’s concern. She draws on the similarities and differences between the two careers, on the perception of the two and on the reasons that may cause a translator to migrate. She argues that technical communication allows for more autonomy and self management and that translation experience serves as a good point of departure for a career in technical communication. Barbara Dragsted and Benjamin Kjeldsen’s preoccupation is with the translators’ involvement in improving machine translation. Working with a project in law enforcement in four languages (English, German, French and Spanish), they suggest that translators, programmers and the police should work together in order to establish the terminology for the exchange of intelligence. The outcome of the project will consist of a terminological database for automatic data analysis and machine translation, operating in all four languages, in a knowledge model used for identification and organization of terminology, and in establishing groups from different professions to work for the benefit of translation. Luc van Doorslaer moves from the individual to the national level and emphasizes the part translation plays in shaping identity. Translation and interpreting in European Union commi�ees and multilingual countries reflect political and social relationships and may prove an interesting field of research. Interpreting is the fourth gravity centre of the book. Barbara Ahrens looks at conference interpreting as depending mainly on phonological data. Starting from an English-German corpus, she investigates the interpreter’s intonation in the target language which is different from what would occur in natural speech. She concludes that the summarizing strategies applied by interpreters result in structuring markers in the targetspeech production. Magdalena Bartolomiejczyk studies the perception of directionality among interpreting professionals and students. Her questionnaire survey disclosed significant differences between professionals and students, the former feeling that they perform be�er when interpreting into their A language, and the la�er showing no preference as to directionality. In the discussion of her findings, she touches upon such factors as language specificity and mastery of the B language. She also pints out that the survey may be biased since the majority of the professionals involved were members of the AIIC which supports a directionality norm towards the A language. She finishes by suggesting different teaching techniques for each type, focusing on the development of specific skills. Helle V. Dam, working on Danish and Spanish, sometimes with English as a third language, concentrates on interpreter’s notes in consecutive interpreting, a must during the listening stage, since, in the second stage, interpreters rely on notes for target speech production. Dam analyses a corpus of notes in terms of preference for symbols rather than language and of target versus source language. She formulates several hypotheses

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

304

2005. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 13: 4

that may serve as a point of departure for studies on interpreter’s note-taking, in particular the idea that interpreters use the target language for note taking, but when they encounter difficulties they switch to the source language to save processing capacity. Sabine Fenton’s focus is on interpreting in convention refugee hearings in New Zealand. The study establishes the profile of the interpreter in terms of educational background, training in interpreting and status in the community. The survey also aims at investigating their perception of their professional role and the extent to which they are prepared to compromise it. Centering on the power relations involved, Me�e Rudvin also examines public service interpreting. Rudvin identifies areas which represent potential obstacles in public service, such as metaphor, connotation, mismatching of semantic fields, social role and identity embedded in language, thus suggesting areas for future research. She illustrates power inequalities that arise both from linguistic and from cultural differences and that amount to pressure on the interpreter. Nigel Hall reports on children’s experience as interpreters. An experiment was simulated of a non-English speaking mother who wanted to enroll her child in school. In the course of her conversation with an English-speaking representative of the school, the children were acting as interpreters. The study explores the children’s perception confronted with social pressure. The results prove that despite their lack of training and support mechanisms, children assume an active role in interpreting when asked to broker between adults. Marie Louise Nobs addresses the reception of translations, referring to expectations that arise when dealing with a translated text, in this case a German translation of a Spanish tourist leaflet. She reports on a two-part study on translation quality. The first stage analyzes the expectations of users of translated tourist leaflets and the second part compares the evaluation that users made of a published leaflet translation and another translated version of the same text manipulated by the researcher. The data collected indicate that respondents evalue content-related and form-related quality parameters equally. Nobs feels that the issue of expectations versus actual assessment is relevant to the professional translation world. In an interesting contribution, Joao Azenha studies the relation between translation and music represented by Robert Schumann. Azenha highlights the musician’s early interest in poetry and the part translation played in his artistic career by developing his expressive resources and enriching his cultural background. In sum, the volume covers a wide range of topics, approached and discussed in a variety of ways by authors with widely different backgrounds. The book is informative, challenging and useful for translation scholars, for professionals, for trainees, indeed for anybody with a serious interest in Translation Studies. Oana-Elena Andone, University of Iaşi, Romania. ********** Jones, Roderick. 2002. Conference Interpreting Explained (Second Edition). Manchester: St. Jerome. 153 pp. ISBN 1-900650-57-6 (pb). Price: £ 18.00. It was not until the twentieth century that interpreting came to be an internationally recognised profession. However, with the growing integration of the world economy and the increasing number of international exchanges, interpreting has now become an integral part of international conferences that involve more than one working language and no large international organisation could function without its conference interpreters in their booths with headsets and microphones. But what is conference interpreting? What is required of a qualified interpreter and how do conference interpreters manage to talk and listen at the same time? Conference Interpreting Explained is targeted mostly towards interpreter trainees and aspirant consecutive interpreters, by providing insight into the workings of the profession as well as offering suggestions for improving interpreting skills. Drawing on many years of personal experience as a practising interpreter and interpreter trainer at European Union institutions, Jones’ book describes the process of conference interpreting by offering readers straightforward and enlightening explanations and providing a handy guide to the field. The book is organised in five chapters. The first chapter is concerned with the prelimi-

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

Reviews.

305

naries of conference interpreting, whereas the subsequent ones discuss the basic principles and techniques of the two major modes, consecutive and simultaneous interpreting. A wide range of commonly used skills and techniques such as note-taking, visualisation (memory training), explanation, anticipation, omission, and summarising are introduced either in detail or concisely sketched. Although one must distinguish between the two different modes, some skills and techniques such as reformulation, salami techniques, simplification, and generalisation are applicable to both. Neophyte interpreters who are still worried about what to note, how to make notes, when to note, how to read notes, when to start speaking, what they should do if the speaker makes a mistake or speaks too fast will also find clear-cut answers and useful tips. Chapter 5 rounds off the book on a joyful note by identifying the double pleasure of the “game-like” activity of interpreting, that is, social enjoyment and intellectual pleasure (129). There is a glossary explaining terminology and a well-annotated list for further reading. Unlike the many jargon-ridden theoretical works on interpreting, which rely heavily on a wide variety of disciplines such as psychology, cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, computer sciences, etc., Jones’ book is enlivened with much practical advice and illustrative examples. From the very outset, Jones emphasises that “[i]nterpreting is about communication” (3). This notion is repeated throughout the book so as to ensure that interpreters understand, even long before they embark on careers in the interpreting community, that word-for-word interpreting is both undesirable and impractical because interpreting is basically an intercultural event in which communication is essential. This observation has important implications for any prospective interpreter. Once this is understood, interpreters realise that as interpreters, they are not merely repeating what the speaker is saying but that they render the meaning of the speaker’s u�erance by means of reformulation or re-expression. What ma�ers are not the actual words used by the speaker, which, at best, leave some faint impression on the interpreter’s mind, but the main idea or the meaning of the message. Thus, novice interpreters will come to appreciate the pleasure that the author derives from interpreting - “establishing communication” (128). Many neophyte interpreters erroneously believe that the more notes they make the be�er they will perform their task. Jones warns that notes are “not an end in themselves, but a means to an end” (39). Notes are only an aid to enhance the work in the three stages of the process of interpreting, namely, listening, analysis, and re-expression. Simple as this may sound, it highlights the fact that a passable and reasonable, if not impeccable, rendition requires the mastery of different components: listening, analysing, note-taking, short-term memory, and production, and all of them within seconds. It is the co-ordination of these efforts that is crucial to the interpreter. Paying a�ention to one of these components at the expense of the others will inevitably impair the overall performance and maybe lead to total failure. So Jones’ advice is that once interpreters start note-taking, they should learn to coordinate their efforts by concentrating on the ‘end product’ to avoid focusing too much on notes (64). Jones also has good advice for prospective simultaneous interpreters. One problem known to all simultaneous interpreters is that a speaker uses long and involved sentences or reads from a manuscript prepared in advance, which o�en makes interpreters wonder desperately about the right time and place to start. Instead of elaborating on the “unit of meaning”, Jones sets down the rule that interpreters can start speaking “once they have enough material from the speaker to finish their own [interpreted] sentence” (76). What I really appreciate about this rule is the emphasis on having interpreters finish their sentences. In their frantic efforts to follow the speaker’s thoughts, novice simultaneous interpreters o�en leave many sentences unfinished and consequently puzzle their audience: the purpose of simultaneous interpreting is to have the audience sit back and enjoy a nice-sounding coherent target-text rendition of a speech delivered in a foreign language. This is why Jones considers “leaving a sentence unfinished” a “cardinal sin” (77). As intermediaries who facilitate communication between speakers of different languages and with different cultural backgrounds, interpreters should always speak coherently and clearly, and in short and simple sentences. Once such habits have been developed, interpreters not only save their listeners from going through nonsense but also head for a more satisfying and successful career. Jones’ book offers much more for specialists and non-specialists alike than this short review can cover. Why not explore on your own the many coping tactics that will surely benefit you in your future work? Before concluding this review, I would like to repeat some cliché-sounding advice: Do remember, however, the development of interpreting skills and techniques does not happen overnight. As we all know, practice makes perfect. Only a�er you practise hard enough and long enough will the basic skills and techniques

306

2005. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 13: 4

introduced in this book become your second nature! Wang Shaoxiang, Fujian Teachers University, Fuzhou 350007, China. **********

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

Lackner, Michael, Iwo Amelung, & Joachim Kurtz (eds.). 2001. New Terms for New Ideas: Western Knowledge and Lexical Change in Late Imperial China. Leiden: Brill. 2001. xiv + 460 pages. ISBN: 90-04-12046-7. Price: € 81: $ 94. The nineteenth century was a time of radical change in China. A�er centuries of isolation from the rest of the world, a series of military defeats, together with a more general sense that China needed to incorporate new ideas in order to survive, resulted in a sudden upsurge of interest in all manner of different types of Western academic subjects, many of which were entirely new to Chinese scholars and experts of the day. To transmit these new ideas to a Chinese audience, it was necessary to provide materials in the Chinese language. However, for many of these disciplines, Chinese lacked the necessary terminology, either because there had been no prior exposure to these ideas at all in China or because the Chinese approach was so radically different from the Western one that native Chinese terminology needed substantial modification to get the point across. Whatever the reason, the people working on these early translations had to fill these gaps in understanding as best they could, and many of the terms these translators coined or borrowed from elsewhere are now so well entrenched in the Chinese language that it comes as something of a surprise to students of the language to learn that many terms such as luoji (logic), yuanzi (atom) and even ziyou (freedom) are relatively recent imports. New Terms for New Ideas is made up of a series of articles by Chinese and Western experts and it explores various different aspects of this phenomenon. The first three sections mainly focus on translations created and sponsored by non-Chinese individuals and organisations. The first section is sarcastically entitled “So Clumsy a Medium”. In the first article, “Chinese Terminologies: On Preconceptions”, Vivian Alleton examines and demolishes the traditional prejudice that Chinese lacks the necessary qualities to accommodate new ideas from elsewhere, re-examines the influence of Japan on the Chinese language at the time, and finally, takes a sceptical look at the notion that nineteenth-century China’s case is unique. The next contribution, “Language Contact and Lexical Innovation”, by Benjamin T’sou, examines the effects on two languages when they come into contact with each other, taking examples from several East Asian languages. He also considers the impact of cultural compatibility on the type of borrowing (transliteration versus using Chinese characters to convey a part of the meaning), and the further adaptation of words once they had been initially adopted into Chinese. Wolfgang Lippert’s “Language in the Modernisation Process” looks at the differences between the Chinese and Japanese adaptations of new terms for Western subjects, including the Japanese borrowing of terms originally coined by missionaries for Chinese use, which fell into disuse in China but were taken up by Japanese scholars and re-imported into China at a much later date. The second section, “The Politics of Names”, contains three contributions on the translation of political concepts. The first article by Song Yuezhi examines the earliest attempts to translate the concepts of “liberty”, “democracy”, and “president” into Chinese, and includes extensive (and sometimes amusing) tables of the terms in use at different dates. Fang Weigui analyses the terms used in Chinese to refer to foreigners, specifically the move from yi (barbarian) to yang and xi (“overseas” and “western” respectively) and the neutral wai (outside), as well as discussing the political forces that helped bring about this change, and the general reaction to it. In the third article, Rune Svarverud discusses the development of the words “power” and “rights”, which even today are easily confused, as the two words are homophones in Chinese. The development of these terms is traced from the early a�empts by (mostly) Western translators to find equivalents of these ideas in Chinese classics (which were o�en unknown to the translators’ target audiences), but subsequently taken up by Japanese writers and re-imported into Chinese at a later date. The third section, “Negotiating Equivalence”, explores more specialised fields. In the first article, Joachim Kurtz follows the history of logic in China, giving an overview starting with its earliest beginnings as mingxue, the study of names, and the later importation

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

Reviews.

307

of Buddhist and Christian logic, neither of which figured largely in mainstream intellectual thought. It goes on to describe what happened when a need for the concept developed in more mainstream writings, and illustrates the conflict over competing terms for logic imported from Japan, taken from ancient texts or transliterated, which was further complicated by the perception of Chinese, Western, and Indian logic as three different things. In the next contribution, Zhang Baichun examines the development of two twocharacter terms o�en used to translate the English word “machine”, jixie and jiqi, from their earliest uses, looking at both compounds and individual characters, and the process by which both were gradually adopted in the modern sense of “machine”. In “Weights and Forces”, Iwo Amelung recounts a�empts to find new terms for the science of mechanics, and details the search for references to mechanics in the classical canon on which to base translations. Further, he describes ways in which the laws of physical mechanics were coupled in rhetoric with the “laws” of economics by politicians and reformers such as Kang Youwei, and some of the fascinating misconceptions that resulted. The fourth and subsequent sections address translations in China. “On Their Own Terms” deals primarily with the work of Chinese translators from the late nineteenth century. David Wright opens this section with a discussion of the work of the groundbreaking translator Yan Fu, who translated many key texts in both the political and scientific fields, a�empting to evaluate him by his own criteria of xin, da, ya (faithfulness, comprehensibility and elegance). Wright also a�empts to explain what made Yan’s work so influential, even though many of the individual terms he created did not survive the test of time. Inigo Schäfer examines the work of Tan Sitong, a writer and political reformer, whose views on Western subjects grew markedly more favourable in the last years of his life, the way in which his use of the terms qi and yitai (the traditional Chinese term and transliteration of the Western concept of “ether”) changed with his opinions when writing about Western scientific concepts, and the differences he perceived between the two terms, including their philosophical dimension. Wang Yangzong describes the collaboration between missionary John Fryer and his Chinese assistant Xu Shou, whose most widely used contribution to the Chinese vocabulary are the new characters they produced for chemical elements. Wang also a�empts to explain why other scientific terms created by this team at roughly the same time, such as those for chemical compounds, did not enter the Chinese language. The fi�h section, “Competing Nomenclatures”, examines competing solutions to different problems of new concepts. First Shen Guowei examines the scientific terms in Elijah J. Bridgeman’s Chinese Chrestomathy in the Canton Dialect, with an emphasis on his use of pre-existing words rather than new creations. He then describes the strategies behind the new terms created by Wilhelm Lobscheid for the chemical elements, and why they were generally not used. Finally, he depicts the collections of technical terms in Justus Dooli�le’s Ying-hua cuilin yunfu from later in the century. In the next article, Andrea Béard explores the introduction of Western mathematical terminology (especially algebra) into the pre-existing Chinese understanding of the subject, and the manner in which the terms coined by the early translators tended to be superseded by standardised Japanese words. The final article in this section, by George Métabilié, considers the adoption of botany as a separate academic discipline (as opposed to its traditional role as a part of materia medica), first examining the terminology created by Western translators, then attempting to explain why very few of the words created at that time are in current use, and finally elucidating where their replacements came from. The sixth section examines Chinese writers’ view of their own language. Although texts discussing language date back to very early in Chinese history, they tended to address definitions of words, and the first grammar, Mashi Wentong, was not published until 1898. Alain Peyraube examines the background of and the forces influencing this text, which was wri�en by a scholar who had spent time in the West and appears to have based his work on old-fashioned Western grammatical textbooks, creating a grammar of the Chinese language that has a rather European structure. The second article, by Michael Lackner, compares the works of two of China’s most influential translators, Dao’an (who translated Buddhist texts in the Han dynasty) and Yan Fu (active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) – both influenced by a literary tradition in which much was known of sentence structure but li�le commi�ed to writing, and both of whom had identified problems translators face when translating languages with very different syntactical conventions. The concluding article is Christoph Harbsmeier’s “May Fourth Linguistic Orthodoxy and Rhetoric”, in which he compares the Chinese language with various other languages for which two different languages or radically different dialects existed side by side, such as East Slavonic and Church Slavonic in Russia, arguing that the situation described

308

2005. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 13: 4

in New Terms for New Ideas is not as unique as some scholars have suggested. He also compares the changes in the Chinese spoken language (between guanhua, the standard Chinese spoken by officials, and baihua, the version of the spoken language advocated by reformers) with changes enforced on other languages for political reasons, such as the Latinisation of Turkish. All the articles in this collection contain much of interest and value, and are generally clearly and intelligently wri�en, though some – such as the philosophical concepts of qi and yitai and Andrea Béard’s article on mathematics – would probably be of most use and comprehensible to someone with a thorough grounding in the subject under discussion. This book is of particular interest to people who are interested in the history of language, the transmission of new ideas across cultural and linguistic barriers, Chinese history, linguistics, and the history of science or philosophy. However, learners of Chinese with no particular background in these disciplines will also find much of interest in these articles, as they mention a lot of terms and phrases that are now in daily use. Moreover, as China is currently taking on more new vocabulary as it becomes more open to the rest of the world, especially via the Internet, this topic will continue to be of interest and relevance for some time to come.

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

Esther Tyldesley, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. ********** Lenz, Friedrich (ed.). 2003. Deictic Conceptualisation of Space, Time and Person. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 274 pp. ISBN 90 272 5354 4 (hb). Price: € 99.00; $119.00. This book examines intriguing categories that call for research, namely space, time, and person. These concepts are eternal, indeed, since the first two constitute the coordinate system within which the person exists (as the starting point of the coordinate system). The book comprises an introduction, index, and three parts, “Space”, “Time”, and “Person and Text”. Friedrich Lenz states in the introduction that the book “presents the results of theoretical and empirical investigations into the pragmatics, semantics and grammar of deictic expressions” (ix), typical examples being personal and demonstrative pronouns, locative and temporal adverbs, tenses, and some verbs of motion. Starting with Sergio Meira’s “Addressee effects in demonstrative systems” (3-11), contrastive studies take up a large part of the book. Meira discusses the demonstrative systems of Tiriyo (a Northern Amazonia language) and Brazilian Portuguese and concludes that in both languages the addressee’s position is important and suggests that this position may be a crucial cognitive reference point (9). In “Deictics in the conversational dyad” (13-40), Konstanze Jungbluth compares Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Cora, and proposes a dyad-oriented system that depends on the speaker encoding and the hearer decoding an u�erance. She distinguishes between face-to-face, face-to-back, and what may be termed side-by-side conversations. These situations refer to gen-eral conditions of language use in conversation rather than language specificity (35-36). Although the German verbs of motion kommen and gehen are normally approached as deictic verbs, Claudio Di Meola describes non-deictic meanings of the two verbs (41-67). A comprehensive analysis leads to the conclusion that the verbs’ polysemous character may result in both deictic and non-deictic readings dependent on the context. Their nondeictic uses derive from their deictic ones: gehen acquires its non-deictic meaning when it is used about unrestricted movement, while kommen is considered non-deictic when it describes restricted movement (44-49, 63). Ellen Fricke has chosen the intriguing title of “Origo, pointing, and conceptualization – what gestures reveal about the nature of the Origo in face-to-face interaction” for her contribu-tion (69-93). She argues that deixis can be understood as “a communicative procedure in which the speaker focuses the a�ention of the addressee by means of verbal expression and gesture” (69), the la�er being defined as “speech-associated gestures” or “co-speech gestures” (70). She also gives a detailed account of what the term origo means. It was introduced by Karl Buhler in 1934 in his Sprachtheorie to denote the origin of a coordinate system and to organise the spatial, temporal, and personal structures of an u�erance or sentence (71). Using a logical analysis, Ellen Fricke arrives at the conclusion that there may be several origos. They are not fixed, but may shi� to entities other

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

Reviews.

309

than the speaker. Then she proposes a hierarchy of origos, starting with the origo of the speaker, and descending over secondary origos that are created through origo allocation. There are also verbal and gestural origos. The former is allocated to the addressee “projected into the future as the imaginary wanderer”, whereas the la�er connects with the speaker’s body. (page 90). Part 2 opens with Christiane von Stu�erheim, Mary Carroll, and Wolfgang Klein’s “Two ways of construing complex temporal structures” (97-133). The authors admit that the text is much determined by the quaestio, “the explicit or implicit question which the speaker sets out to answer” (97). They state that textual information falls in two major categories: thematic continu-ity and referential framing, the la�er being a unity of space and time. The aim of the article is to describe how English and German speakers organise and transmit temporal information when they answer the quaestio “What happened?” (98). The authors make some interesting observa-tions, such as the following: English speakers adopt a referential frame in which “the temporal anchor” is placed at the now of the experiencer (109), while German speakers refer to a situation that is a well-delimited entity … on a structured time line” (112). The authors maintain that speakers develop specific principles in the construction frames that help them construct event-time relations (129). Thomas A. Fritz (135-151) argues that both the category of modality and that of the fu-ture tense are based on the speaker who points deictically at himself (135). The article is firmly based on classical linguistics: Roman Jakobson (136), Go�lob Friege (138), Ludwig Wi�genstein (138), and Aristotle (139), who all wrote on modality. Fritz even makes excursions into the language history when he considers the future tense in Germanic languages, which had “no particular sign to express the future at all; formal ways of expressing the future with the verb start to be grammaticalised towards the end of the Middle Ages” (143). The interrelation of modality and deixis has also a�racted Tanja Mortelmans’ a�ention. She uses the time-modality interrelation as her starting point and considers what she calls “a relatively independent modal dimension” in her article on “The subjective effects of negation and past subjunctive on deontic modals” (153-182). Her modal dimension is inspired by Ronald W. Langacker’s basic epistemic and dynamic evolutionary model (Langacker as quoted in Mortel-mans (154)). According to Tanja Mortelmans, the main point of her contribution is that “negation and past subjunctive enhance the tendency towards a speaker-oriented interpretation” (177). Part 3 opens with Johannes Helmbrecht’s “Politeness distinctions in second person pronouns” (185-202). Like other authors in this volume, Johannes Helmbrecht refers to Karl Buhler’s notion of origo as the cognitive ground for the act of pointing (199). Having analysed the distribution of politeness over global regions, the author admits that linguistic distinctions of politeness can be explained on the basis of pronoun usage. Moreover, pronoun politeness distinc-tions are real. These distinctions are explained in terms of function and borrowing: the forms of polite address are subject to borrowing (199). In the reader-friendly article “Deictic use of demonstrative pronouns in the Rigveda” (203-221), Katharina Kupfer examines the deictic system of pronouns in Old Indic, illustrated by the Rigveda, a collection of Old Indic texts dating from the second millennium B.C. Her basic interest lies within the deictic demonstrative pronoun idam and the neutral der-deictic pronouns. Katharina Kupfer analyses this material, comprising about twenty-seven thousand sentences, in detail. Making theoretical points, she emphasises that the demonstrative pronouns have a lexical content of “nearness” or “distance” to the deictic centre, the la�er being the nearness to the origo (217), whereas der-deixis is neutral in terms of localisation in space and time (218-219). Manfred Consten’s “Towards a unified model of domain-bound references” (223-248) also makes a favourable impression thanks to its scrupulous linguistic analysis as well as its sound theoretical foundation. Manfred Consten writes about domain-bound reference, that is, reference depending on knowledge taken from the situation. (Ronald Langacker as quoted by Manfred Consten (223)) In his study of deixis, Manfred Consten draws a parallel to anaphora, since anaphora presupposes that the referent is already known, while deixis presupposes that the referent is present as noted by Friedrich Lenz (as quoted by Consten (224)). Consten makes a distinction between broad and narrow definitions of deixis. The former includes anaphora, whereas the la�er distinguishes between deixis proper and anaphora proper. Consten follows the la�er definition (226) and argues that there is a categorical distinction between reference to present as opposed to nonexistent phenomena. Consten suggests a hypothesis about direct and indirect reference to deixis: “in the case of direct reference, the referent is immediately accessible. In the anaphoric case, it is explicitly mentioned in the pretext; in the case of direct deic-

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

310

2005. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 13: 4

tic reference, it is part of the immediate extra-linguistic environment” (233). Manfred Consten concludes that there is a transition between total textual dominance and total dominance of non-textual information. He is convinced that anaphoric and deictic reference can both be direct or indirect. In the former case, the referent is accessible, while in the la�er, it has to be found in the discourse or in the environment. He also hopes that his analysis “helps to eliminate the terms deixis and anaph-ora from the vocabulary of cognitive linguistics” (243). In the final article, Heiko Hausendorf (249-269) considers situational context and its primary deixis, that is, “those expressions by means of which some facets of the “ground” are put “onstage”, i.e. aspects of the “immediate circumstances” of the speech event” (250). She concludes that deixis should be located at the borderline between language as a semiotic code and sensory perception as a non-semiotic channel of communication, in other words that deixis operates at the interface between code and message (263-264). This book is not in Translation Studies directly. However, it should be always kept in mind that Translation Studies is first and foremost a field in language studies, that is, linguistics. Books like Deictic Conceptualisation of Space, Time and Person greatly contribute to the back-ground knowledge that Translation Studies experts, practical translators, and interpreters, who sometimes seem to be ignorant of basic linguistic notions, need as part of their background knowledge. The insufficient knowledge of complex linguistic problems is highlighted by the fact that translation is far from a trivial substitution of words in one language by the words in another language. Translation is a complex process that requires multifaceted knowledge of quite a few disciplines, of which linguistics is a major one! The book under review introduces one to the world of notions, terms, and observations that serious translators and Translation Studies schol-ars cannot do without. Vladimir Khairoulline, Bashkir State University, Ufa, Russia. ********** Long, Lynne (ed.). 2005. Translation and Religion: Holy Untranslatable? Topics in Translation 28. Clevendon & Buffalo: Multilingual Ma�ers. 209 pp. ISBN 1-85359-817-8 (hb). 1-85359-816-X (pb). 1-85359-818-6 (electronic). Price: £ 26.95 (pb); £ 69.95 (hb). Why are sacred texts so difficult to translate? What makes a text sacred? What is the purpose of translating a sacred text? These are only a few of the questions this collection of articles addresses. In the introduction, the editor, Lynne Long, suggests a few reasons why holy texts are so notoriously difficult to translate, explains the links between Bible translation and translation research, and briefly explains the specifics of holy texts and the importance of the source text. The editor also addresses the differences between translating holy texts that are central to a culture and those that are peripheral only. The book consists of two parts entitled the Wider Picture and Specific Studies. In the first part, the articles address general issues that arise in the translation of religious texts. Christopher Schakle tackles the issue of translatability of sacred texts (with examples from Greek, English, Persian and Punjabi texts), the differences between literature and scriptures, religion and spirituality. K. Onur Toker writes about the importance of translation and interpretation within Christianity, specifically in the Pauline tradition, where a prophet is seen as an interpreter, and the Bible is translated in order to build the house of God. Kate Crosby wonders about everything that does not get translated in Buddhism and whether having more Buddhist texts (especially from the later periods and less wellknown languages) would transform our view of Buddhism as a ”rational” or ”mystical” religion. Leonard Greenspan examines Jewish translations of the Bible from Hebrew into other languages such as English, Greek, and German. W. J. Johnson discusses the dilemma of source- vs. target-orientedness of translations of the Bhagavad Gita, while Adriana Şerban addresses the issues of modernising vs. archaising in translation of Orthodox liturgical texts (Greek and Old Church Slavonic) when these are translated into English. At the end of the first part, Peter Kirk presents some current approaches to Bible translation, giving the reader a short history of Bible translation into various languages, and suggesting that the old dilemma of whether to opt for source-oriented or target-oriented translations of the Bible should be solved for each translation assignment, depending on the purpose and the intended audience of the translation. The second part of the book examines specific translation problems in individual texts, and provides insight into the practical issues that translators of sacred texts have

Reviews.

311

to address while working with such texts. This section addresses the problem of not having one definitive source text (David Jesper) for the Bible, the strategies used by Tibetan monks in translating Buddhist texts into Tibetan in the 12th century (Jonathan Gold), problems associated with translating gender specific biblical words in our gender inclusive times (David Burke), how spoken words of the Sufi Saints changed when they were translated into wri�en words (Nile Green), how a 12th-century sacred text (the St Albans Psalter) became a 21st-century historical document found on the Internet (Sue Niebrzydowski), and how to tackle the cultural differences between the English target public of an English translation of the Qur’an and its source public in medieval Arabia (Hussein Abdul-Raof). Manuela Foiera’s account of the problems associated with translating the texts of Japanese Buddhism into Italian, a language pregnant with 2000 years of Catholicism, concludes the book. Every single contribution in this collection is a thoroughly enjoyable and fascinating read for anybody interested in or working with sacred texts, religion, or Translation Studies, and at the same time provides some consolation to practising translators struggling with the specific demands of translating sacred texts, showing them that they are not alone in their misery. Marija Zlatnar Moe, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

********** Orero, Pilar (ed.). 2004. Topics in Audiovisual Translation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. xiv + 227 pp. ISBN 90 272 1662 2 (Europe) / 1 58811 569 0 (US). Price: €99.00; $119.00. This book, the 56th volume of the Benjamins Translation Library, is in many ways reminiscent of the 34th volume, (Multi) Media Translation (Gambier and Go�lieb 2001), and is as welcome an addition to the literature on audiovisual, (multi) media, and screen translation as was the earlier book. The new book is a collection of 14 articles, grouped into five sections. There is also a preface by the editor and there are three indexes at the end: a one-page list of films, TV programmes, and literary works referred to in the book; five pages of proper names mentioned (researchers, public figures, countries, cities, and languages); and four pages of concepts discussed. I believe that readers will find especially the last one very useful. Some of the contributors work as professional translators, but most are primarily academic researchers and scholars. The majority are affiliated with universities and companies in Spain, especially in and around Barcelona, which in the preface is described as “one of the busiest cities in the world for film production and postproduction”. Some of the descriptions and perspectives offered in the book thus carry a certain Spanish or Catalan bias, which is not a problem in itself, except that large parts of the world are underrepresented. There is no room for a detailed discussion of the claims, merits, and possible shortcomings of the individual contributions, so a very brief overview will have to suffice. In the editor’s preface, Orero defends her choice of Audiovisual Translation for the title of the book as the clearest term encompassing “all translations – or multisemiotic transfer – for production or postproduction in any media or format”, though it should be pointed out that all of the following articles focus exclusively or at least primarily on screen productions and their different forms of translation. The two articles in the first section, ‘Professional Perspectives’, are straightforward introductions to current practices and alternatives in Spanish and Catalan dubbing (Xènia Martínez) and subtitling (Diana Sánchez), without any references to other publications or elaborate a�empts at theorising. This is addressed in the three articles in the section ‘Audiovisual Translation Theory’. First, Jorge Díaz Cintas argues for studying Audiovisual Translation not only from a linguistic point of view, but also by using the frameworks of Descriptive Translation Studies and Polysystems Theory, and by employing concepts such as norms and patronage. While not entirely uncritical of these currently dominant paradigms in Translation Studies, the author suggests that this approach can provide new and be�er perspectives on Audiovisual Translation, and perhaps lead to the modification of the frameworks and concepts themselves. By contrast, Frederic Chaume Varela is concerned with a much narrower topic, namely synchronisation in dubbing, and, despite a couple of lengthy and redundant passages, he provides a good introduction to the field. One of his main

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

312

2005. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 13: 4

points is that in order to achieve maximum dubbing quality, specially trained translators should be responsible for both translation and synchronisation. In a shorter contribution, Eduard Bartoll discusses some of the many parameters according to which subtitles can be classified, including several technical parameters such as placement, production time, and colour, and a couple of linguistic ones such as inter- vs. intralingual ‘translation’. The third section is titled ‘Ideology and Audiovisual Translation’. In the first article, Rosa Agost provides the reader with an introduction to the complex cultural and linguistic situation in Spain and the manner in which political and other aspirations influence the translations of audiovisual productions. There are, for example, more regulations, explicitly expressed norms, and quality checks concerning TV channels broadcasting in minority languages than there are for the national channels. This is partly because, in the autonomous regions, translations actually form an important basis for the normalisation process of the regional language. There is also a stronger tendency in those regions to domesticate foreign cultural references. In the next article, Henrik Go�lieb discusses various aspects of subtitling, especially with a view to the increasing dominance of the English language in the world in general, and in small (subtitling) countries in particular. Somewhat concerned about current developments, the author outlines six scenarios ranging from “Utopia: The cosmopolitan situation” to “Dystopia: The anglified situation”, with Scandinavia, South Africa, France, and ‘Anglostan’ representing different intermediate stages. He argues that only “Utopia” would be sustainable from the point of view of linguistic diversity and viewers’ choice. The next section addresses Teaching Audiovisual Translation. Aline Remael proposes teaching the basics of discourse analysis to subtitling students so as to make them more aware of all the potentially obscure, but nevertheless important, meanings and messages that are o�en contained in film dialogue and that might be worth preserving in the subtitles. Josélia Neves adopts an almost diametrically opposite perspective, arguing that learning how to subtitle is excellent practice for all translator trainees, including those who will end up translating altogether different types of texts. The author’s experience is that film and subtitling are such complex yet stimulating topics that learning more about them invariably improves the students’ general translation skills. Miquel Amador, Carles Dorado, and Pilar Orero, finally, provide a very general description of an on-line course in Audiovisual Translation at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. The last section of the book addresses Audiovisual Translation Research. In the first article, Francesca Bartrina outlines five areas of research in the field that seem promising to her, namely screenplay, film adaptation, audience design, pragmatics (politeness) in interpersonal communication, and Polysystems Theory. In the only contribution that is not wri�en in English (but in French), Yves Gambier focuses on one of these areas, namely the complexities behind film adaptations, and, using a French-Finnish film production for exemplification, he argues that a clear distinction between adaptation and translation is not possible. He proposes “tradaptation” or “transadaptation” as a more appropriate term for all sorts of transformations. Eva Espasa is concerned with the neglected field of documentary translation and addresses two “myths”, namely that “a documentary is not a film” and that “documentary translation is not specifically audiovisual”. Her main point, however, is that more research is called for. Finally, Vera Lúcia Santiago Araújo introduces readers to current practices in closed subtitling in Brazil and describes a study showing that such subtitling needs to be be�er adapted to those who actually depend on it. As in most collections of articles, the individual contributions vary much with respect to content, approach, scope, and clarity. The main purpose of some is to present some straightforward information about Audiovisual Translation, which this reviewer appreciates, while others are heavy on theory rather than fact. With the exception of Araújo’s article, none is clearly based on original, empirical research, and systematic analyses of concrete audiovisual translations are virtually absent from the book. This does not mean that some articles are not interesting for the target readership, quite on the contrary, but merely a wish that some had been a bit more substantial and to the point. I also cannot help commenting on a couple of pe�y editorial points: there are oddities as regards style, grammar, orthography, and punctuation, and since these tend to cluster in some of the contributions, they can be slightly irritating. These – and the nonalphabetical order in the index of titles - might have been fixed in an additional round of proof-reading. The other point concerns the way the articles are grouped in sections, which seems unnecessary and forced, as two articles belonging to different sections may actually have more in common with each other than with those they are categorised. A division along the lines of general Audiovisual Translation – dubbing – subtitling, or a simple alphabetical ordering, might have worked be�er.

Reviews.

313

Nevertheless, overall the book provides a fair update and new perspectives on a still somewhat under-researched field within Translation Studies. It provides interesting information to both newcomers in the field, who may appreciate especially the passages on ‘how it’s done’ and ‘what it is’, and experienced professionals and scholars, who might focus on the more theoretical discussions. In terms of geographical coverage, the book is, as hinted and despite its neutral title, especially well-suited for those who want to learn more about Audiovisual Translation practice and research in Spain. Work cited: Gambier, Yves & Henrik Go�lieb (eds.). 2001. (Multi) Media Translation: Concepts, Practices, and Research. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Thorsten Schröter, Karlstad University, Sweden. **********

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

Pym, Anthony. 2004. The Moving Text. Localization, translation, and distribution. Amstedam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins (Benjamins translation library 49). 90 272 1655 X. 220 pp. including notes, references, and subject index. Price: Australian-born Anthony Pym is one of the most active translators and researchers in translatology today. He is currently based in Tarragona, Spain, where he has headed and inspired an “intercultural study group” for several years and from where he has launched various international ventures - one of the most significant being two exchange lists on the Internet: TICL, which discusses “intercultural problematics as they affect Translation Studies and Comparative Literature”, and ITIT, devoted to “innovation in the training of translators and interpreters”. On this second list he initiated an online conference on localization and translator training in autumn 2004, an event which attracted many participants and lively discussion. The present book goes much further than what was discussed on that occasion. Pym is one of those writers who resume and expand former publications. In some chapters of The Moving Text, he retrieves, develops, and clarifies issues in Translation Studies that he had already introduced in Translation and Text Transfer (1992) - key notions such as as equivalence or the translator’s anonymity, but also an approach to translation (and indeed to localization) as transactions, i.e. considering the costs incurred. Economic considerations on cost effectiveness, including charts to determine which courses are most appropriate for blanketing internationalization procedures to translation with cultural adaptation ... or language learning, are all the more welcome as they are inscribed in, or circumscribed by, an overriding concern for keeping people (readers, not reified “end-users”) at the core of whatever we do with texts. If we consider the few demands he formulates in this respect (in his last chapter “Humanizing discourse”) his book meets them brilliantly: it is explicit, it allows us to hear a first-person translator/researcher/questioner addressing adult readers, it is accessible (except in terms of price, but this is the reverse side of publishing with a fairly prestigious publisher) without ever talking down to readers or simplifying issues. It is linear, too, and distinctly takes us on a journey of discovery in which respect it resists the current trend, induced by on-line instructions and implemented by the localization industry in its partiality to “leveraging” and “chunking” to provide information in disconnected units, which prevents readers (and translators) from achieving any general understanding of the processes involved. Translators move texts, from one language to another, from one culture to another, and, in the new lingo of localization, now also from one locale to another. Pym usefully reminds us of the materiality of the translation process and, in our electronic age with its constantly updated material, just as much as in the ages of the past with their painstakingly copied manuscripts, of the instability of the source text. This takes much away of the century-old burden of “faithfulness” to the original.1 There is an obvious, albeit fluctuating, hierarchy between languages. The current global prevalence of English (in some form or other) is hard to deny. Similarly the assymetry of distribution assigns different parts to users, ranging from “passive consumers” to “active developers”. This is expanded in pages on the positions of users as either participants or observers, i.e. those either involved in what is presented or merely informed about it.

314

2005. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 13: 4

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

Apart from ‘cooperation’ and ‘understanding’ (which are central to Pym’s ‘human’ and humanizing approach) very few concepts should be granted absolute status, neither efficiency or profit in the field of trade (where localization has developed) nor indeed textual equivalence, given the different purposes that can be served and the complex interaction of signification and value (what a word or phrase means in a particular context). Yet there was a point in Pym’s discussion of effectiveness of translation policies within the European Union organisations when I personally resented a suddenly narrowly budget-minded approach while one of the best aspects of the European Union’s policy is precisely its staunch defence of lesser used languages. But on reading a sentence like “One begins to suspect that, were it politically possible, the European Commission’s Translation Service should have been outsourced long ago” (150) we feel with relief that this section too is highly critical.2 Actually humour is everywhere present, in li�le wry comments or in gently ironic examples. There are a couple of typos, but on the whole the presentation is excellent - except of course that I still resent the use of endnotes instead of footnotes, especially when, as is the case here, they are in no way limited to bibliographical references. Pym’s latest book is a significant contribution to a clear and comprehensive view of what translating means today, in a perspective that combines the most recent developments and a long view which takes us back to the Elephantine dragomen. It charts the various processes involved and what it means for all agents and partners, and it sets out explicitly what ethical priorities should never be le� out. A rare object in the field of Translation Studies, it is unimpeachably scholarly, and it is also (in its restrained AngloSaxon way) passionately commi�ed. Notes 1. If translators can indeed be suspected of being traitors, it should be understood literally, not because of any breach of adherence to some sanctified source text but because of divided loyalties, since translators must of necessity feel at home in more than one culture. 2. Two side remarks here. Firstly, the number of official languages within the EU a�er the enlargement has moved from 11 to more than 20. Secondly, there is no reason to elaborate on the use and abuse of the most expensive and user-unfriendly TM so�ware, Trados, and not DéjàVu or WordFast. Christine Pagnoulle, University of Liège, Belgium. ********** Sidiropoulou, Maria (ed.). 2005. Identity and Difference: Translation Shaping Culture. Bern & Berlin, etc.: Peter Lang. 202pp. ISBN 3-03910-633-3 (Europe); ISBN 0-8204-7164-X (US). Price: SFR 56.00 This is a selection of eight conference papers in addition to the editor’s ‘Introduction: Transforming national cultures’. The book “explores cross-cultural difference in identity reflected through translation, while highlighting the potential of translation to innovate or play down aspects of identities in receiving systems” (18). In the present era of globalization we live by dualities such as “the center-periphery, global-local, the WestEast, etc.”(13) These are powerful enough to affect translation strategies and products and make for great complexity. The negotiation between centripetal and centrifugal trends in translation varies according to genre. In ‘Language, culture and the Internet: to globalize or not to globalize through translation’, Per�i Hietaranta explores the potential of translation to shape culture through transfers of terminological terms; he analyzes a selection of Internetrelated translations and finds that in English-Finnish rendition there is a tendency to prefer English rather than domestic terms, which reflects the influence of English on other languages. However, since language can both reproduce and transform society, “our language use needs to be conservative enough to secure comprehensibility amongst the members of the community” (42-43), which makes a case for a more balanced interchange. Christina Schäffner examines the potential of translation to provide insight into studies of identities through metaphor treatment (English-German) in intercultural situations. “Translations can make differences in conceptual metaphors [and] metaphorical

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

Reviews.

315

expressions explicit, and a retrospective comparison of target texts and source texts can reveal differences in conceptual metaphors and in metaphorical expressions” (49) because the mapping process involves the understanding of “one domain of experience (a target domain) in terms of another one (a source domain).” (49) In ‘Transferring Woody Allen’s New York: Translation strategies and the polysystem’, John D. Sanderson uses the dubbing of American films into Spanish to show that the inflow of cultural stereotypes can have a considerable effect on target socio-cultural development. Since the process of cultural globalization revolves around the Anglosaxon axis, this leads to the question whether globalization is to be celebrated or feared. E�erpi Mitsi discusses variations in identities in Racine’s translation of Aristotle’s Poetics. Racine, who was conscious of the translations potentials for shaping culture, favoured a target-language orientation in his translations without openly challenging the source text. “The tragic action of the play manifests Racine’s interpretation of the tragic hero from the Poetics, shi�ing his translation of Aristotle from the margins, both literally and figuratively, to the very center of his creative work.” (107) Jean Peeters’ ‘Localizing and globalizing trends in Language through the Looking Glass’ discusses aspects of globalizing and localizing by examining two books (one English, the other French, each translated into the other language). He finds that of these two languages and cultures, English has more status and a stronger potential for radiating ideas towards other cultures. “Translation mediation demonstrates that the localizing trend in the translation towards English diminishes the shaping force the mediation process might have in the (target) culture.” (129). Adnan K. Abdulla discusses the diffusion of Hemingway’s novel The Old Man and the Sea in the Arabic world. In contrast to the simple style of the original, the translation is verbose and inexact because Arabic belongs to another language group than English, has a different literary tradition, and a different aesthetics. “Despite translators’ assimilationist intention, however, translation has always been familiarizing local audiences with new ideas and values, thus, activating the potential of instigating change in receiving systems.” (151-152) Carlos Machado’s ‘Surrealism and translation in opposition’ discusses positive effects of foreign identities on domestic contexts by means of translation. It seems that “most famous surrealist writers, poets, theorists and painters, can very well be described as … surrealist translator[s]” (167). Instead of considering foreign influence as a danger to domestic identities, they regard it as a source of innovation for national projects and develop strategies to “legitimate an avant-garde aesthetic and ethical project under an authoritarian political regime” (167) as well at to overcome the restrictions that political systems impose on them. Nadežda Stojković discusses changing identities by drawing a�ention to the potential of translation to influence target culture by deepening self-awareness and shedding light on otherwise unknown aspects of cultural identity. On the one hand, translation can wreak havoc on weak cultures because of the dominant language’s aggressive character, but, on the other hand, translation can also offer societies a potential for developing in new directions by enriching, rather than dominating, the ‘self’. Therefore she concludes that “[l]anguage (and translation) is communication in which we can search and find the words that can reach others, and let the otherness enrich us.” (184) This volume addresses important issues. It reveals the shaping force of translation on social-cultural structures by exploring international transfer situations between a number of language pairs (English-Arabic, English-German, English-Finnish, English-Spanish, French-English, French-Portuguese, Greek-French), in a variety of genres (political texts, Internet texts, film, theatre, literary texts), and by numerous approaches (linguistically oriented, culturally oriented, etc.). The book bears testimony to the great role translation has played and still plays in shaping culture. In the modern globalised world, translation is a profession and enjoys an increasingly higher status. No ma�er whether a target system demonstrates a conscious, resistant a�itude towards imports or uses assimilationist tactics in order to make imports conform to locate taste, translation has the power to stimulate change in societies and to shape culture. Translation, as well as translators, was, is, and will continue to be a major force in shaping the world’s cultures and in promoting the development of societies. The book demonstrates that translation is a means of enriching our identities. In the era of globalization, internationalization is a dominant trend, but it never excludes localization since, like all organic wholes, it allows diversity that makes our world be�er and proves the point of the title Identity and Difference: Translation Shaping Culture.

316

2005. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 13: 4

Xu Jianzhong, Tianjin University of Technology, China **********

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

Zatlin, Phyllis. 2005. Theatrical Translation and Film Adaptation. A Practitioner’s View. Clevedon & Buffalo: Multilingual Ma�ers. Xii +222 pp. ISBN 1-85359-832-1. Price: £ 24.95. Theatrical Translation and Film Adaptation. A Practitioner’s View addresses a li�le explored area. The book lists only few publications on the topic, and, as far as I know, there is only one book in Chinese, namely Opera Libre�o Translation and Research (Sun Huishuang 1999). Theatrical Translation and Film Adaptation comprises 8 chapters as well as an appendix. Chapter 1 ‘In Theatrical Translation, There is No Lack of Conflict’ sounds defensive because drama translation is a neglected field in Translation Studies and there is a scarcity of research on the topic. The next two chapters, ‘Out of the Shadows: The Translators Speak for Themselves’ and ‘Networking: Collaborative Ventures’ describe the results of a questionnaire study the author conducted among international theatrical translators (from the West), and of personal interviews with translators and other theatre professionals in the United States and Europe. Her results clearly reveal that people have a different understanding of ‘adaptation’ because “each language has its own stylistics and theatre conventions vary from country to country” (3). Chapter 4, ‘Practical Approaches to Translating Theatre’ offers useful suggestions for theatre translation such the identification of appropriate versions of the source text, familiarizing oneself with the terminology and style for stage directions in the target language, translating a play as a whole, recreating dialogue that is fluent and that actors can handle with ease, etc. It is also noted that adaptation, the most frequent strategy, takes many forms such as repetition, compensation, substitution, and pruning. ‘Variations on the Bilingual Play Text’ discusses problems the author has met with as a translator, an editor, and a teacher. She notes that is difficult “to make the oral text readily accessible to the target audience” (103) and that the difficulties are nearly insurmountable when the source text is bilingual or multilingual. “There is a wide range of possibilities in the creation of bilingual plays that in turn require varying translation strategies” (103) – including the translator’s imagination. Chapter 6 ‘Titling and Dubbing for Stage and Screen’ is a transition between the examination of the world of the theatre and of film adaptation of plays. The chapter “routinely mentions the parallels with translation when teaching film adaptation and with film adaptation when teaching literary translation” because of “the similarities between translation and adaptation/transformation theory” (x). ‘On and Off the Screen: The Many Faces of Adaptation’ argues that despite some criticism, adaptation has been and continues to be a widespread strategy. And the last chapter ‘From Stage to Screen: Strategies for Film Adaptation’ proposes a wide range of strategies, from transposition via transformation, to analogy. The terms that impress me most in the book are ‘adaptation’ and ‘adaptation theory’ since they are obviously central to the nature of drama and film translation and adaptation. Such theory is somewhat like variable translation theory in China which is also reader-centered. Zatlin stresses the importance of capturing the meaning, style, and atmosphere of the source texts without footnotes, of achieving speakable dialogue, of adopting texts to stage cultures, and of collaborating with living authors, directors, actors, and the theatre company, etc., most of which makes adaptation a necessity. The approaches to theatrical translation and film adaptation summarized by Phyllis Zatlin are feasible and practical. In addition to the hints mentioned, she discusses such features as the format that varies in plays wri�en and translated for performance vs. versions meant for reading, the advisability of doing some over- or under-translation in specific contexts, noting differences in the speed of delivery of actors in the source vs. the target cultures, as well as differences in ‘wordiness’ as opposed to ‘conciseness’ in everyday spoken language in the source vs. the target cultures. The approaches to film adaptation span from transposition via transformation to analogy. Transposition refers to “the equivalent to a literal translation that carries over the source text, more or less verbatim” (198). Transformation means “the equivalent of semantic translation that more aggressively concerts verbal texts into visual screen language while remaining loyal to the source” (198). And analogy is “a kind of free, communicative translation

Reviews.

317

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

that rearranges materials and even changes tone as it more or less completely adapts the source to the requirements of a different genre” (198). It is striking to me that the approaches to drama translation and film adaptation in this book are much the same as those to opera libre�o translation proposed by Sun Huishuang. It appears that genres that interweave language and visual signs, information, and narration cannot avoid being adaptative. The common denominator is that worldwide people take an interest in the artistic form of drama and film, and that therefore the special needs of specific national and cultural target audiences must be catered for. Phyllis Zatlin and Sun Huishuang also agree that translators should be familiar with the material to be translated. It is personally gratifying that drama and film translation and adaptation as discussed in the book supports my own view that a major criterion for translation is “mastering the ideas of the source texts and making them acceptable to the recipient” (Xu Jianzhong 2002). Although my study focused on business translation, it apparently also holds water for drama and film translation. The questionnaire for theatrical translators and the interviews with the theatrical translators demonstrate that Phyllis Zatlin has researched the area thoroughly. Every comment, assessment, and conclusion is based on concrete examples that carry conviction. Therefore, this book is a perfect blend of translation theory and practice. It is a good guide for practitioners as well as beginners. Others who take an interest in drama and film translation will find a wealth of interesting insights. Cited works: Sun Huishuang. 1999. Opera Libre�o Translation and Research. Wuhan: Hubei Education Press. Xu Jianzhong. 2002. An Introduction to Enterprise Translation. Beijing: China Translation & Publishing Corporation. Xu Jianzhong, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, China. ********** Zhao Yanchun. 2005. 翻译学归结论 [A Reductionist Approach to Translatology]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language and Education Press. xxiii + 324 pp. ISBN 7-81095-618-3. Price: RMB 18.00. The introduction of Western translation theory has promoted the development of Translation Studies in China. However, present translation research in China merely follows Western ideas uncritically. Zhao’s book A Reductionist Approach to Translatology tries to rectify this state of affairs. It is critical and emphasises theory construction. Zhao believes that it is very important to learn from Western theory and to know the key issues of Translation Studies, such as its ontology, epistemology, and methodology. He introduces the hypotheses reductionist methodology to Translation Studies and tries to open up to the study of the ontology and epistemology of Translation Studies. Zhao suggests that all theories, including Western ones, have their merits and demerits. Here he discusses the disadvantages in terms of the understanding of the nature of translation. He believes that the cultural schools exaggerate non-essential aspects of translation, turning its multifaceted nature into a narrow field. Cultural schools, especially those concerned with the limited field of literary translation and focusing on manipulation and rewriting, do away with traditional concepts such as “source text,” “target text,” “faithfulness,” and “equivalence,” and exaggerate the translators’ influence on the process and the context and dispel the existence of translation as a discipline, and the conditions and laws of translation. In his book, Zhao applies a reductionist approach, that is, he focuses on only what is essential to translation. From this angle he explores the ontology of translation and constructs a relevance system to translation. Zhao divides translation into (a) social phenomena, (b) material products, and (c) processes. In his view, the first is not essential to translation and the second lies beyond the scope of translation research, which means that both can be disregarded. I am not convinced that he is right, but, unlike most present-day scholars of Translation Studies, he argues that essentials of translation are found in its ontology. He tenaciously defends the specific nature of translation. The author proposes two principles. The first is to make “relevance”, as understood

Downloaded At: 23:38 18 February 2009

318

2005. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 13: 4

in relevance theory, the overriding principle of the reductionist approach to Translation Studies. The second is convergence, which requires translators to converge on “equivalence” to the largest extent possible. The introduction of relevance theory provides new ways of examining concepts such as translatability and equivalence. The author argues that relevance translation theory makes it possible to set up a macroscopic theoretical generalisation of translation research, explain translation phenomena, and avoid being self-contradictory. As a communicative act, translators must take into account communicator intention and reader expectations and make these the basis for translational choices, that is, translators must consider the source-text author’s explicit communicative act. In this way, issues such as translatability and untranslatability are easily solved, because translators can then identify the linguistic code and apply different discourses to express the source content and achieve the same communicative effect, realising “equivalence.” In the book, the author further analyses equivalence by applying text parameters, static equivalence and dynamic equivalence, exploring various models of equivalence, and analysing various equivalent levels such as word, phrase, syntax, pragmatic intention, and fuzzy equivalence. The last part of the book addresses the relation between form and content, thus exploring the limit of translatability and untranslatability of literary and non-literary texts. The author thinks that formal translation is not only necessary but also possible, and that the ideal translation is to pursue identity in spirit by means of identity in form, and he provides examples to support this idea. On the basis of his critical examination of Western translation theory, the author proposes his reductionist approach to Translation Studies as the fruit of many years of devoted research. Zhao is well versed in linguistics, lexicography, and Translation Studies, which enables him to present concepts accurately, provide stringent analyses and logical proof. So it is a pleasure to read and learn from his book. Nevertheless, I disagree on two major points: one is that the author seems to be somewhat mechanical in his understanding of Western translation theories. The second is that I do not believe that we can avoid discussing the interaction of translation and society. Song Gairong, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China.