According to Catford, “General Linguistics is, primarily, a theory about languages work.” and “Translation is an operation performed on languages … [so] any theory of translation must draw upon a theory of language - a general linguistic theory. ” (1965:1). This article discusses mainly the research process of understanding how Translation Studies and Linguistics are related to each other and in what specific aspects these two disciplines contribute to each other. Sources cited are either digital online articles or hard copies from the school library. The varieties of sources include an encyclopedia, a dictionary, handbooks and journal articles. I started in a standard way by looking up Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies first to …show more content…
Therefore, it is reasonable for Translation Studies to learn from Linguistics. However, translation can make progress from the “natural relationship with linguistics … only as long as Translation Studies is considered a discipline in its own right, not a mere branch of applied linguistics” (Şerban 2012: 216). Therefore, it is very important to be careful not to view Translation Studies as merely a sub-branch of …show more content…
The advent of corpora in translation studies was inspired by corpus linguistics (Laviosa 2012: 228). In the early 1990s, Mona Baker promoted the development of a corpus-based methodology ‘to uncover the nature of translated text as a mediated communicative event’ (Baker 1993: 243). Laviosa explains in her article that “corpus linguistics is an approach to descriptive and applied language studies, which is based on the analysis of corpora, i.e. collections of authentic texts held in electronic form and assembled according to specific design criteria. Corpus translation studies (CTS) denotes an area of research that adopts and develops the methodologies of corpus linguistics to analyse translation and translating for descriptive and applied purposes” (2012: 228). Lastly, we should be cautious not to rely on Linguistics too much or Translation Studies will not be able to develop into an independent discipline. Gideon Toury (1980) regards it necessary to create a theory and methodology specifically for translation, because, frameworks borrowed from elsewhere, such as contrastive linguistics, cannot address the full complexity of translation
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.
Words are almost translations themselves. They are re-creations of other words from other languages and from their own. They are metaphors—dead because they have been "carried across" into alien languages, and dead because we no longer hear them. They are the memories of, and allusions to, what they once were.
The Life of Language: Papers in Linguistics in Honor of William Bright. Berlin [etc.]. Mouton De Gruyter, 1998. Print. The.
The author’s diction heightens the confusion and difficulties the English language evokes, as her simple method of communication progressively becomes more complicated. Words are “sifting” around solely as “vocabulary words” it becomes difficult for her to connect and understand this “closed” language. The author learned Spanish during her childhood through past memories and experiences which helped her form a closer knit bond to the language as a whole; however, English does not root any deep connections for her causing her to doubt the importance of words. The negative connotation when she refers to vocabulary words and closed is due to the fact that she is frustrated with her inability to communicate exactly what she perceives as they are not connected to experiences. Similarly, the language seems “frail” and essentially “bottled up” as she is unable to express her thoughts in a manner other than exclusive “translations”. Unlike Spanish, English seems to have a complicated and confusing aspect tied to it where the author is feels trapped because she cannot convey her emotions or relate to it culturally. The repetitions of these words that have a negative connotation draw out the significance behind communication and the true value of connecting to a culture. Overall, the dictio...
At first glance, one would not imagine the Donnelly twins to play an important role in the play Translations by Brian Friel. However, after taking a closer look, it becomes apparent that this work would be much less meaningful if these characters were not presented. Although they never physically appear, their actions spark the conflict between the English and the Irish, as well as causing the main problem in the storyline to emerge.
Text linguistics is a “discipline which analyses the linguistic regularities and constitutive features of texts” (Bussmann, 1996: 1190). According to this definition, text linguistics is mainly concerned with studying the features that every piece of writing should have in order to be considered as a text. It is also defined by Noth (1977 in Al-Massri, 2013:33) as “the branch of linguistics in which the methods of linguistic analysis are extended to the level of text.” This means that text linguistics aims at producing rules and methods that can be used to analyze the whole text. This approach has been put forward by the two scholars Robert-Alain de Beaugrande and Wolfgang U. Dressler in their seminal book “Introduction to Text Linguistics”, in 1981. The study of texts in linguistic studies starts in
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?
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 translation process may seem easy to them who don't have to deal regularly with it, but after a little exercise anyone could realize the amount of problems rize even just from the translation of a single word. In fact languages are not a list of tags that simply name the categories of the world; each language organizes the world in a different way and the meaning and value of the words varies in relation to their cultural and social system.
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.
Ypsilandis, G.S. & Kantaridou, Z., (2007). English for Academic Purposes: Case Studies in Europe, Revista de Linguistica y Lenguas Aplicadas (2): 69-83.
To begin with a brief definition of translation, it can be stated that it is basically transferring the words included in one language to the other by making necessary changes and sticking to the source language taken from either the source text or source speech. With the help of rapid technology and the network among countries, the significance given to translation has become an indispensable part of wide range of business and communication purposes. The source determines whether it will be a job of translators or interpreters. It is important to refer each of them by explaining the differences between them at this point.
Slocum, J. (1984). "Machine Translation: its History, Current Status and Future Prospects ", Siemens Communications Systems, Inc., Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin, Texas.
Language is a means of human communication whether verbally or nonverbally. In everyday life we use language to express our thoughts, feelings ,attitudes,etc.A great amount of social interactions takes place every day over the telephone ,by online chats, face –to face interaction or at workplaces .We use language of different forms for different functions as in to inform, question , and sometimes to strengthen social relationships or just to keep the social wheels turning smoothly. Moreover, understanding one's own language and even other cultures’ language is important to arrive at a successful and effective communication with others . The study of language can be undertaken in various ways .Semantics and pragmatics are two branches of linguistics which are concerned with the study of meaning.
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. ()