Traducción Directa

Traducción Directa (English-Spanish)

Introduction to translation
What is translation? A brief history of translation.
Untranslatability and equivalence.
Comparison of L1 and L2 grammar and use of translation.
Summary Coping with linguistic difference.

of Content Genre: text type and purpose.

Technical Texts
Operative Texts
Expressive Texts
Cultural issues in translation.
Exoticising and domesticating.
Language variety: social and tonal register.
 This course contributes to the consolidation of the students'
academic-professional profile by improving their language skills
in both English and Spanish, as well as their abilities to
translate from the former language into the latter in both
discipline-specific and different professional contexts. The
course teaches undergraduates to deal with various modes,

Module
types, and genres of texts in translation, and offers them
practical suggestions about how to solve the main problems
they will come across. The texts students will be analysing and

Aims translating present them with clarifying examples of those

problems and will compel them to find the most convenient
solutions in each case. The course is mostly practical in nature
since it relies on the students' regular translation of set texts
and their constant improvement thanks to the in-class feedback
received from the teachers.

The main aims of this course are: to learn to identify the

linguistic units in the source text in order to gain a full
comprehension, to identify the translation elements that are
particularly problematical and to solve the problems they pose.
An additional aim of the course is to reinforce the oral and
writing skills in both languages.
 Baker, M. In Other Words: A coursebook on Translation. 2nd edition. London, UK:
Routledge, 2011.

Bassnett, S. Translation Studies. 4th Edition. London, UK: Routledge, 2014.

Greenbaun, S. & R. Quirk. A student's grammar of the English Language.

London, UK: Longman, 1990.

Haywood, L.M., M. Thompson & S. Hervey. Thinking Spanish Translation: A

Course in Translation Method Spanish to English. 2nd edition. London, UK:
Routledge, 2009.
Recommend
ed reading
Munday, J. Introducing Translation Studies. London, UK: Routledge, 2001.

Real Academia Española. Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española. Dirigida

por Ignacio Bosque y Violeta Demonte. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1999.

Smith, C. Collins Spanish-English English-Spanish Dictionary, 2nd edition.

London, UK: Harper Collins Publishers, 1997.

Venuti, L. (ed.) The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London, UK:

Routledge, 1995.
---. The Translation Studies Reader. London, UK: Routledge, 2000.
 • Team translation exercise: 20%. Generic Competence 4
Assessme • In-class translation test: 40 %

nt
• Final 24-hour translation task: 40 %
Week Tuesday Wednesday Date
1 10, 11/09
Introduction to translation – What is translation? A brief history of translation
2 17, 18/09
Equivalence theories Equivalence theories – Dynamic Equivalence.
3 24, 25/09
Equivalence theories – Formal Equivalence NO LECTIVO
4 1, 2/10
Coping with linguistic difference - Comparison of L1 and L2 grammar Genre: text type and purpose
5 8, 9/10
Genre: text type and purpose Strategizing for text type: Technical Texts
6 15, 16/10
Glossaries & Technical texts Operative Texts
7 Team Translation & 24 hour test 22, 23/10
Expressive texts: Register & Relevance
Operative Texts
8 29, 30/10
Polysytems & expressive texts In-class test
9 5, 6/11
Exoticising and domesticating NO CLASS
10 Foreignising a novel extract 12, 13/11
Exoticising and domesticating
Team Translation Submission
11 Expressive texts: Creative texts (film) 19, 20/11
Domesticating a novel extract
Language variety: social and tonal register
12 26, 27/11
Expressive texts: poetry and songs Recap
13 3, 4/12
24 Hour Test 24 Hour Test Submission
14 10, 11/12
Revision Week Revision Week
 • We are going to discuss fundamental
notions:
• Language, Culture, Translation
• “Good” translation
Today • Translation and Complexity
• Translatability
• Translation Studies
• Translation Theory
 • Process (i.e. activity)
• Product (i.e. result)

• Translation n. 1 the act or an instance of translating. 2 a

written or spoken expression of the meaning of a word,
speech, book, etc. in another language. (OED)
Translatio
n • Translation as a process “focuses on the role of the
translator in taking the original or source-text (ST) and
turning it into a text in another language (the target-text,
TT)”.
• Translation as a product “centres on the concrete
translation product produced by the translator”. (Hatim
& Munday, Translation: An Advanced Resource Book,
2004)
 • There are various sub-types of translation:
• Literary translation vs Technical translation

• Subtitling vs Dubbing vs Voice-over vs Audio-

Translatio description
n • Machine translation vs Man-produced
translation
 • Roman Jakobson distinguished between 3
types of translation
Translatio
n • Interlingual
• Intralingual
• Intersemiotic
Translation
• Intralingual translation is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of
other signs of the same language.

• Interlingual translation is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of

some other language.

• Intersemiotic translation is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of

signs of nonverbal sign systems. (Jakobson, 2000: 114)

• ‘The process of translation between two different written languages involves the
translator changing an original written text (the ST) in the original verbal
language (the SL) into a written text (the TT) in a different verbal language (the
TL)’. (Munday, 2001: 4-5)
 • For Munday, intralingual translation is
‘rewording’; it occurs when we rephrase in
the same language to explain or clarify.
• Intersemiotic translation is ‘transmutation’;
Translatio it would occur if a written text were
n translated into music, film or painting.
• Interlingual translation is the traditional (but
not exclusive) focus of Translation Studies.
 • This distinction is convenient, but has a
Does this somewhat reductionist understanding of
look entirely ‘language’
unproblemat
ic? • Intersemiotic translation can be pretty much
anything
 • ‘We know what [kat] means not because of
some mystical virtue inherent in the
Saussure’ phonetic sequence [kat], but because, or
partly because, [kat] contrasts with [hat],
s Theory [bat], [fat], [rat] and so on. On the lexical
of level, important contrasts are between ‘cat’
and ‘dog’, etc.’ (Armstrong, 2005: 7-8)
Language • Linguistic forms are arbitrary (‘l’arbitraire du
signe’ (Saussure, 1973: 100))
 • Two sides of the same coin (the sign)
Signifier
and • What happens when we translate across
different languages?
signified • What happens to the signifier?
• What happens to the signified?
'We are obliged to state that no one can
understand the word "cheese" unless he has an
acquaintance with the meaning assigned to this
word in the lexical code of English.'

'Mere pointing will not teach us whether

"cheese" is the name of the given specimen, or of
any box of camembert, or of camembert in
general or of any cheese, any milk product, any
food, any refreshment, or perhaps any box
irrespective of contents.'

(Jakobson in Venuti, 1995: 113)

 • In small groups, make a list of the
features of what constitutes for
What is a you a ‘good’ translation. Would
these features always be
good applicable?
translation
?
• (true) Meaning/substance/content
• Form/style/tone
• Source
• Target
• Loss
• Accuracy/clarity/beauty/naturalness/fluency/
precise/perfection
• Literal
• Nonsensical

• => ‘fuzzy’ terms => high level of subjectivity

• ‘A good translation doesn’t look like a translation’?
 • A lot of early (pre-1980s) theories are
reductionist in nature
• They idealize the translation process, and fail
Translatio to acknowledge its complexity
• Since the ‘cultural turn’, the complexity of
n and translation is more recognized
Complexit • The translation process is chaotic: tiny
changes in initial conditions can have
y dramatic results
• Seventy-one million-dollar word – ‘intoxicado’
• Intoxicado is not the same as intoxicated
 • Find examples of untranslatable word/texts.

Are some
• Explain what they mean to your group.
words/texts
untranslatab
• What exactly makes them resistant to
le? translation?
 • Debate stems from the vagueness of ‘meaning’ and from
the lack of consensus over what ‘language’ and
‘translation’ mean
• Then, acknowledgement that there is no symmetry
between different semantic systems
'Since no two languages are identical, either in the
meanings given to corresponding symbols or in the ways in
(un)Translatabi which such symbols are arranged in phrases and sentences,
lity it stands to reason that there can be no absolute
correspondence between languages' (Nida, in Venuti,
1995: 126)
• => Translatability is relative: it is the extent to which
meaning can be adequately expressed across languages
(despite differences of structures)
'All cognitive experience and its classification is conveyable
in any existing language' (Jakobson, in Venuti, 1995: 115)
 • Well…
Is • Yes. Worse case scenario, the source item
can be transferred and explained in the TL
everythin (Newmark)
g • “Every variety of meaning in a source
translatabl language text can be translated either
directly or indirectly into a target language,
e then? and therefore everything is translatable.”
(Newmark, 1989: 17)
 • And…
• No. Some scholars argue that translations are apparently
attempts at finding a solution to insoluble problems.

Is • Back to the idea that there is no perfect symmetry between

everythin languages

g Murakami once told me that he never reads his books in

translation because he doesn’t need to. While he can speak and
read English with great sensitivity, reading his own work in
translatabl another language could be disappointing—or worse. [...] The
Japanese language acquires much of its beauty and strength
e then? from indirectness—or what English-speakers call vagueness,
obscurity, or implied meaning. Subjects are often left
unmentioned in Japanese sentences, and onomatopoeia, with
vernacular sounds suggesting meaning, is a virtue often difficult
if not impossible to replicate in English. (Kelts, 2013)
 • Attempts at more systematic analysis:
• Catford: linguistic vs. cultural unTR

• Linguistic: when there is no lexical or

Untranslatabi syntactical substitute in the TL for an SL item
lity (= lexical gap)
• Cultural: Absence in TL culture of a relevant
situational feature for the SL text. (ex:
different concepts of ‘bathroom’ in English,
Japanese etc, where the object and the use
made of that object are not at all alike)
Solutions?
• Adaptation: Dupont & Dupond
• Hernández & Fernández in Spanish
• Thomson & Thompson in English
• Schultze & Schulze in German
• Jansen & Janssen in Dutch
 • A translation procedure whereby
the translator uses a word or
expression from the ST in the TT
without changing it
Borrowing • Café
• In italics for borrowings that have
not completed their integration
into the lexicon
 • Translating
word-for-word/morpheme-for-
morpheme

Calque • Skyscraper
• Gratte-ciel
• 摩天樓
• Rascacielos
 • A procedure whereby aspects of
the ST that cannot take the same
form in the TT are replaced by
other means
Compensat
ion • Tu/vous or tu/usted
 • A word from the ST is replaced by
an expression in the TT

Paraphras • “Saudade” (Portuguese) is

translated in English as “the feeling
e of missing a person who is gone”
 • Jakobson’s paper “On linguistic aspects of
translation” in Venuti, Lawrence (ed.) The
Translation Studies Reader

Suggested • Read Chapters 1 and 2 in Munday, Jeremy,

Introducing Translation Studies
reading
• Nida's paper "Principles of correspondence"
in Venuti, Lawrence (ed.) The Translation
Studies Reader