Chinese 747
Advanced Chinese
Translation Practice
Class Time: 9-11 am Wednesday
Classroom: 207-302
Teacher: Dr. Yan Ding (Lydia)
E-mail: [email protected]
Recap of Week 2
• Translation Process
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Gile’s Sequential Model – Translation Unit
3-Dimentional Translational Anaysis
Nida & Taber – Analysis and Restructuring
Vinay and Darbelnet - descriptive, affective and
intellectual/metalinguistic context/stylistic effects
– Liu Miqing – 六步法
• Quality Control
Week 3: Translation competence:
besides dictionary, what else?
• Translation Competence
• Translators’ Tools
Translation Competence
• Competence as a summation of linguistic
competencies
– Wilss (1982): the translator “must have an SL
[source-language] text-analytical competence and a
corresponding TL [target-language] textreproductive competence” (118).
• Competence as no such thing
– Competence v Performance/Proficiency
• Competence as multicomponential
– PACTE Group
• Competence as just one thing
– Pym’s Minimalist Approach
Translation Competence
PACTE 2003: 18
Process in the Acquisition of Translation
Competence and Evaluation
The bilingual sub-competence.
• Predominantly procedural knowledge needed
to communicate in two languages. It includes
the specific feature of interference control
when alternating between the two languages.
It is made up of pragmatic, socio-linguistic,
textual, grammatical and lexical knowledge in
the two languages.
Extra-linguistic sub-competence.
• Predominantly declarative knowledge, both
implicit and explicit, about the world in
general and special areas.
– (1) bicultural knowledge (about the source and
target cultures);
– (2) encyclopaedic knowledge (about the world in
general);
– (3) subject knowledge (in special areas).
Knowledge about translation subcompetence.
• Predominantly declarative knowledge, both
implicit and explicit, about what translation is
and aspects of the profession.
– knowledge about how translation functions: types of
translation units, processes required, methods and
procedures used (strategies and techniques), and
types of problems;
– knowledge related to professional translation
practice: knowledge of the work market (different
types of briefs, clients and audiences, etc.)
Instrumental sub-competence.
• Predominantly procedural knowledge related
to the use of documentation sources and an
information and communication technologies
applied to translation: dictionaries of all kinds,
encyclopaedias, grammars, style books,
parallel texts, electronic corpora, searchers,
etc.
Strategic sub-competence.
• Procedural knowledge to guarantee the efficiency of the
translation process and solve the problems
encountered. This is an essential sub-competence that
affects all the others and causes inter-relations amongst
them because it controls the translation process.
– to plan the process and carry out the translation project (choice of
the most adequate method);
– to evaluate the process and the partial results obtained in relation
to the final purpose;
– to activate the different sub-competencies and compensate for
deficiencies in them;
– to identify translation problems and apply procedures to solve
them.
Psycho-physiological components.
• Different types of cognitive and attitudinal
components and psycho-motor mechanisms.
– cognitive components such as memory, perception,
attention and emotion;
– attitudinal aspects such as intellectual curiosity,
perseverance, rigour, critical spirit, knowledge of and
confidence in one’s own abilities, the ability to
measure one’s own abilities, motivation, etc.;
– abilities such as creativity, logical reasoning, analysis
and synthesis, etc.
Minimalist Approach
• Two-fold functional competence (cf. Pym
1991):
– The ability to generate a series of more than one
viable target text (TTI, TT2 … TTn) for a pertinent
source text (ST);
– The ability to select only one viable TT from this
series, quickly and with justified confidence.
Translators’ Tools
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www.dict.youdao.com
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/
www.thesaurus.com
www.ozdic.com
Practice
• C-E
• https://www.nrdc.org/experts/lissalynch/trump-budget-cuts-climate-scienceaction-across-board
• https://www.chinadialogue.net/blog/9681Trump-budget-cuts-climate-science-andaction/ch
Mini-Presentation and Discussion
• Volunteer pair, discuss the following:
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Practice
Translation process
Problems/difficulties
Solutions/strategies
Any revisions made?
General comments/suggestions/sharing
Summary