The
role and significance of translation activities
O.V.Lebedynskaya
Odessa State University
of Internal Affairs
The article reveals the theoretical considerations
about the translational process and the various approaches that help
undergraduate students master the art in the educational context. The author
highlights the main problems, teachers should focus on, in order to foster
students’ progress and reinforce their linguistic and cultural awareness, in
both the source and the target languages. Some methodological recommendations
and activities that aim at facilitating the progress of acquiring the skills on
the part of translators-trainees in the EFL classroom are discussed briefly.
Radical
changes in all spheres of the modern world, that has to face the challenges
caused by globalization, call for the reconsideration of the ways of teaching
languages and related study areas with the shift of the focus onto different
aspects of language use, linguistic, communicative, expressive and pragmatic
features becoming the major ones. Due to the fact that language behavior of the
speaker is characterized by the linguistic, psychological and sociolinguistic
factors that are determined by the cognitive processes and situational
parameters in interaction, societal aspects, as well as micro contexts and macro
contexts, are to be emphasized the training. Moreover, it is important to draw
a distinct line between spontaneous language production and language
acquisition. These tasks are closely connected with the problems that are being
raised and studied within the framework of general research of the competence
and performance of bilingual and multilingual speakers.
The role
and significance of translation activities as well as the training programmes
that offer effective and balanced preparation have reached undisputed
popularity in modern methodology due to their objective of serving the purpose
of ensuring cross-cultural communication. Translation (both bilingual and
multilingual) has developed rapidly as such factors as international trade,
increased migration, globalization, internalization of sport and arts, the expansion
of the mass media and technology are key features of cross-cultural
communication in the world.
Current
researches in the field resulted in the assumption that bilingual or
multilingual speakers’ use different codes for different languages, code-switching
being regarded a norm for competent language users. The other important factor
deals with distinguishing basic knowledge from situational discourse knowledge.
These are the very spheres that cause problems, difficulties and ambiguity. The
date investigated prove pragmatic and more specific socio-pragmatic ambiguity
to be the most difficult to cope with, due to the fact that it inheres in a
much wider discourse choices not limited merely by the use of lexical or
structural units and require a more complicated procedure of implementing the
correct maxims and maxim confluence. The consideration of the maxims and their
confluence enriches the content and the methods of EFL as it opens new
possibilities for the learners’ awareness and necessity of more diverse
linguistic behavior.
Translation deals with specific purposes of communicating messages and
information within the cross-cultural context. For this reason, translators
play an important and complicated role as transmitters of cultural, historic, social
and political information while interpreting texts, speech and ideas in a
variety of texts regardless the accuracy of translation. Translation is believed to be a transfer
process from a foreign language- or a second language- to the mother tongue,
though the new demands in the field set forth the task of transferring texts to
a target language that is not the mother tongue, but a foreign language, which
makes translating process a much harder task. The importance of training
knowledgeable translators, who know the language well and are aware of the
peculiarities of language acquisition, have mastered the translation strategies
and procedures, is the main task of educational establishments. Still it leaves
another important issue to consider - - the knowledge of specific areas which
needs the systemic use of special activities and techniques. According to E.C.
Condon, there is always the way of approaching a text, whether the translator
chooses the author-centered traditional model, the text-centered structuralized
model or the cognitive reader-centered model (Condon 1973).
Within
the theoretical context it is essential to discuss the problem of
translatability. It is common knowledge that the main obstacles in the
translation/transfer process are caused by the linguistic complexity of the
languages, namely grammar, vocabulary, semantics and phraseology. R. A. Hudson
puts the idea of ‘culture’ into focus, explaining that ‘linguistic
untranslatability’ is connected with so called true and false friends, calques,
and other kinds of interference; terms in different areas, neologisms,
aphorisms etc., while ‘cultural untranslatability’ is understood as the
peculiarities of stable linguistic expressions such as idioms, sayings,
proverbs, nonce words, jokes, puns et cetera (Hudson 1980). Thus, to convey an
accurate meaning becomes a very difficult task if the target language does not
have the correlative concept in its semantic and cognitive aspects.
The
most effective way to deal with the problems of untranslatability is “contextualization”,
i.e. the ability to find the closest in meaning interpretation of the “no
existing” element within its context. The quality of translation is the result
of the complex cognitive and linguistic process that is based upon such inseparable
elements as knowledge, skills, training and qualifications, cultural
background, world outlook, life experience and expertise. The most essential
characteristics, that good translators should have, are primarily of linguistic,
educational, personal, social and cultural nature.
Reading comprehension ability, as well as the knowledge of specialized
subjects derived from specialized training and a cultural background, the right
understanding of major peculiarities of cross-cultural and interlingua
communication, are considered obligatory skills that can help ensure high
quality translation.
According to most translation theorists, the specific approaches to text
translation tend to be similar, translators will adopt one model or another,
but many will tend to an integration of different approaches. Translating
problems such as linguistic or cultural untranslatability are to be dealt with
through application of various mechanisms (compensation, loans, explanatory
notes, adaptation, analogies, etc.). Translators should also be aware that
meaning is not only conveyed by words as transferring messages requires
adequate decoding and re-decoding of information.
Hus
teaching future Translators within the framework of European requirements to training,
which deals with a number of matters of contemporary interest in the world,
should be based on a special theoretical model that will outline the main
ideas, approaches, methods and techniques to be used in the classroom
affectively. Given the international context and the ever increasing interest
among language learners to internationally formatted training process, the
model should be include the component that will focus on the activities, which
offer different forms and types of tasks, competent translators are expected to
be fluent in.
To conclude,
the main concerns in teaching translators are centered on the methodological
considerations, teaching procedures, trainers’ expertise, and the materials
that can be used in the classroom affectively.
References
1. Condon, E.O. (1973). Introduction to Cross Cultural Communication: New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
2. Communication Strategies: Psycholinguistic and Sociolinguistic
Perspectives (1999)/ Ed. By G. Kasper and E. Kellerman: Longman.
3. Hall, E.T. (1959). The Silent Language. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett
Publications, Inc.
4. Hudson, R.A. (1980). Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
5. Rodgers, T. (2003). Methodology in the New Millennium. English Language
Forum, 2003, Vol. 41, No.4.
6. Savignon,S.J. (2002). Communicative Curriculum Design for the 21st
Century. Forum, 2002, Vol. 40, No. 1.