The Importance of the Brief for a Translator under the Framework of the Skopos Theory
1. Introduction
There has been a heated discussion in the field of Translation Studies with respect to where the emphasis should be put. Should it be on the source text and the sender, on the target text and the receiver or the process itself? This boils down to how one defines translation. This essay offers a critical view on the Skopos theory, which focuses on the translation process. A discussion is included to illustrate the importance of translation brief in both pedagogical and professional settings. Other related theories are presented as well. Finally, the essay concludes with a few remarks and suggestions.
2. Equivalence and the Skopos Theory: a Critical View
One of the most important concepts in Translation Studies is equivalence put forward by Eugene Nida (1964). There are two types of equivalent relationship between the source and the target texts according to him, formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. Formal equivalence focuses on reproducing the surface structure, i.e. form and content of the source message. On the other hand, dynamic equivalence emphasizes equivalent effect, which implies that translators should aim to produce a similar response in the target audience to that in the source audience. However, scholars have criticized the concept of equivalent effect for being too vague. Moreover, it is almost impossible to create equivalent effect for readers from a different culture. ()
In the late 1970s, the focus of translation studies shifted to the process of translation as well as the receivers. Hans Vermeer is the founder of Skopos theory. As the Greek word skopos indicates, this theory stresses that translati...
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...slators will not ask for a brief even if they know it is better to have one when they do not receive one. There are two main reasons for this phenomenon. Firstly, considering the tight deadline and wage, translators cannot afford the time to ask for information about the target audience or the communicative purposes and then wait for a couple of days to receive replies from clients. Secondly, translators will not ask for a brief because clients do not know the importance of translation brief and sometimes they will even be annoyed if being asked too many questions. To get more jobs in the future, translators would like to maintain a good relationship with clients. (Jensen, 2009) As we can see, although the Skopos theory stresses the importance of translation brief, the reality in the translation industry does not live up to what is expected in the academic field.
Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life” is a short science fiction story that explores the principals of linguistic relativity through in interesting relationship between aliens and humans that develops when aliens, known as Heptapods, appear on Earth. In the story Dr. Louise Banks, a linguist hired by the government to learn the Heptapods language, tells her unborn daughter what she has learned from the Heptapods as a result of learning their language. M. NourbeSe Philip’s poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language” also explores the topic of language and translations, as she refers to different languages as her “mother tongue” or “father tongue.” Although these two pieces of literature may not seem to have much in common both explore the topics of language and translation and connect those ideas to power and control.
I have chosen to remediate my rhetorical translation assignment because it will be the easiest to translate into a different medium. Another reason that I want to remediate my rhetorical translation assignment is the topic it covers, BWC’s in policing, which is something I will have to deal with once I get into the law enforcement after graduation. The medium I chose for this remediation assignment is a flyer for the BWC’s that could potentially be distributed to police departments at conferences or sent by mail. I made a series of 3 flyers in order to include all of the information needed.
Julio Cortázar is a famous novelist from Argentina. He was born August 26, 1914 in Brussels, Belgium and died February 12, 1984 at the age of 70 years young. Otherness is the foundation of translation in almost every sense of the word. The translator must become the author's other, his Doppelganger, what Julio Cortázar called his paredros, using a Greek term for an old Egyptian concept of otherness. At the same time the translator must turn the author into another possibility of his own existence. The writer stays himself but is now writing in another language and therefore at least partially in another culture. Also, there will be more than one translation of a classic, meaning that even in its otherness the classic has other possibilities. Mandelbaum, Singleton, Sayers, and Ciardi are all partially Dante in that they are his others, yet they are not clones, not even identical twins, and usually not even close enough to be fraternal ones. Theirs is anotherness within the same language, different variations on the same theme as it were.
Finally we can say that the discussion in the class and the differences in the interpretations showed us clearly the differences between the perceptions of the readers on the same work. In the lights of the reader-oriented theories one can claim that there is no single truth or meaning derived from the text, the responses will change as the readers change.
Once I attended a translation seminar in Korea, where most participants were Korean professors of foreign languages. They insisted that the importance of the act of the translation lies in introducing the unfamiliar to an audience, rather than making foreign literature readable. When I raised the question of stilted texts
In human society, translation plays a significant role, which helps realize effective communication among people. Benjamin (as cited in Venuti, 2000) indicates translation is the mode, which plays a function of transmitting information; hence translatability determines whether the information could be effectively and appropriately delivered and is regarded as the “essential quality of certain works”. Throughout history, many scholars have developed translation theories, which provide various effective translation strategies and methods, to explore the translatability. Equivalence theory points out that all languages always share some similarities; hence the languages could be exchanged (Nida, as cited in Venuti, 2000). The skopos theory emphasizes
The manner in which things are said has its own undeniable impact on meaning and must be accounted for during translation. The question which presents itself is whether a given instance of linguistic markedness is evaluative (i.e. contextually motivated and functional) or is it merely a systemic matter opted for almost by default, and therefore unworthy of the text receiver’s attention?
What is a word? How the translator deals with this gap? What influences his choices? These are few of the question we will try to explain in this paper. We will pay a particular attention to the cultural differences and the translational gaps raised from it. In my opinion the non-equivalence in translation is due above all by the cultural barriers that influence our lifes.
To show an example to grasp the difference between the two of them, it is enough to claim that in its most basic sense, if the translator cannot find an equivalent for the target language, it is at word level. However, if it is above the word level, the job of the translator becomes tougher because she/he needs to deal with more complicated language elements such as collocations, idioms and fixed expressions as clearly stated by Baker. By referring to the Baker’s reasons for non-equivalence, culture-specific concepts should be counted as the first because it is very obscure that each language reflects its culture in its language and that’s why each language differs from one another. For example, a translator may not find an equivalence for the word ‘speed-dating’ just because it doesn’t exist in the target language. Lack of a superordinate word, specific term; differences in terms of form, expressive meaning and semantic complexity of the languages can be added as other cases where we come across with difficulties. In fact, the skills of the translator is needed at this very point to deal with each situation separately by using various strategies. Using a general word, translating by cultural substitution, paraphrasing and omitting the problematic lexical element can be included as the most common strategies. To refer back to what has been explained previously, the complexity of the translation is determined by such factors. Indeed, interpreters seem to come across with more difficulties since they need to think on the
Translation has always played a key role in shaping cultures, societies, languages, and literatures throughout the history of mankind. On the other hand, in contrast to all its potentials, the discipline has been underestimated within academia and it had not been studied in any systematic way as a planning activity until the last century (Toury, 2002). Having been overshadowed by linguistics and comparative literature, the discipline of translation studies was conceived as a subordinate academic field. This is mainly because translation was merely seen as a code-switching activity and firmly stuck in the paradigms of fidelity and equivalence.
Slocum, J. (1984). "Machine Translation: its History, Current Status and Future Prospects ", Siemens Communications Systems, Inc., Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin, Texas.
Languages are continually changing and developing, and these changes occur in many different ways and for a variety of reasons. Language change is detectable to some extent in all languages, and ‘similar paths of change’ can be recognised in numerous unrelated languages (Bybee, 2015, p. 139). Since users of language all over the world have ‘the same mental processes’ and ‘use communication for the same or very similar ends’ (Bybee, 2015, p. 1), similar changes occur on the same linguistic aspects, and in many cases these changes produce similar results in multiple languages. However, language change is limited by the function it performs. Languages must be learnt to such an extent which allows communication between the generation above and below one’s own (McMahon, 1994, p. 5). Hence language change is a gradual, lethargic process, as only small changes in
First and foremost, TMs change the translator´s cognitive process as reported by Mossop (2006, 790), Biau Gil and Pym (2006, 9), and Pym (2011, 1). This change in the mental process is confirmed by studies carried by Christensen and Schjoldager (2011, 124), Dragsted (2006, 460), and LeBlanc´s (2013, 7) collected testimonials from professional translators. The change in the cognitive process resides in the very fact that TMs work with segments as explained previously. Since TMs work with segments rather than the whole text, they force translators to work on a sentence-by-sentence approach (LeBlanc 2013, 7). As a result of this imposition, many translators said that it affects the quality of the text in terms of cohesion and idiomaticity since translators can hardly see the source and target text in full view (ibid.). As Pym (2011) states, the disruption of the linearity of the text and broken into a paradigmatic form results in the
...ting in one group differ greatly in another group. Solutions to these problem may include language classes, multilingual translators that can be incorporated into the teams and technological solutions such as translators.
In fact, Arabic translator may face difficulties in translating the Holy Quran to the English language. The main problem that faces Muslim translators in translation Holy Quran is no equivalent of Islamic terms that lead them to use Communicative translation, For example, Zakah which means (alms giving - زكاة) and Taqwa (piety - تقوى) So the way of translating these terms into English language only gives the close meaning (Ali et al, 2012, p. 588). Additionally, translation of holy texts is difficult because sometimes the translators interpret superficially and biased of choosing the right equivalents (Khosravi, Pourmohammadi, 2016, p. 152). Hence, Amjed (2013, p.141) suggested that it is not enough to only read one translation of the Holy Quran if Arabic is not the first language, the greater the number of translation read the easier to find the essence of the original text. It could be difficult task to translate Islamic expression since it may have non- equivalent words in the English