Language games vs. the game of translation (original) (raw)
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Nominalizations in Scientific and Political Genres: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective
IASET, 2014
The theoretical model of Halliday and Matthiessen (1999) which investigates transitivity as a means of depicting inner and outer world experiences is applied in the analysis. In both registers, the function of utilizing IGM is to express the lexis and grammar in the way the speaker or the writer wants in order to create or notify a certain influence on his/her reader or audience. In each text, the aim is transference of the intended meaning to the reader or the audience in a bright, appealing and magnificent way. In scientific, this is done by several important functions like encapsulating, compacting and creating technical, expert and professional terms that are obtainable to a nimble and conscious mind. In spite of all the above functions, the aim of the speaker or the political writer is to convey the intended message, prevail, persuade and provoke a particular group and carry up the job of initiating the reader or the audience into certain worldview in a quick, compact, arousing and desirable manner.
Linguistic and Translation Studies in Scientific Communication
Studies in Language and Communication, 2010
This article attempts to raise awareness on the fact of taking into account metadiscourse in the translation of scientific texts in English and Spanish. It has been proved that applying genre and register analysis to the translation of specialized texts (Suau, 1998, 2001) can yield good results. Metadiscourse, a recent discourse analysis concept coming from the development of register's tenor (Crismore et al.,1993) and also from the influence of semantics and the concept of hedging (Lakoff, 1972), has become a new, extremely useful tool in specialized translation. Metadiscourse is defined as the linguistic material that oral and written texts possess, not adding any
The cognitive shift in terminology and specialized translation
2009
This article offers a critical analysis and overview of terminology theories with special reference to scientific and technical translation. The study of specialized language is undergoing a cognitive shift, which is conducive to a greater emphasis on meaning as well as conceptual structures underlying texts and language in general. Terminology theory seems to be evolving from prescriptive to descriptive with a growing focus on the study of specialized language units from a social, linguistic and cognitive perspective. In consonance with this, new voices are beginning to be heard, which offer different and complementary perspectives on specialized language and translation.
Terminology and translation theory : A functional-pragmatic approach
2008
Sigmund Kvam ABSTRACT In this paper the concept terms covers both the systematic designation of defined concepts within a specific field as well as ‘field specific lexemes in a broader sense’. The object of functional pragmatic translation is text as a communicative unit, representing a specific genre, which again is defined as conventionalized patterns of communication. In this context translation is seen as an interlingual, target group oriented reproduction of a text in a given genre. Within a functional-pragmatic framework terms cannot be translated in communicative isolation, but as structural configurations of onomastic fields to fulfil a specific set of functions in the target text discourse community. This will be demonstrated by means of examples from translations between German, English, Norwegian and Greek. In accordance with the theoretical statements and as shown in the examples, the translation of terminological elements in texts is carried out as ‘lexeme-in-function’:...
ELETO (Hellenic Society for Terminology), 2006
Terminology has a twofold meaning: 1. it is the discipline concerned with the principles and methods governing the study of concepts and their designations (terms, names, symbols) in any subject field, and the job of collecting, processing, and managing relevant data, and 2. the set of terms belonging to the special language of an individual subject field. In its study of concepts and their representations in special languages, terminology is multidisciplinary, since it borrows its fundamental tools and concepts from a number of disciplines (e.g. logic, ontology, linguistics, information science and other specific fields) and adapts them appropriately in order to cover particularities in its own area. The interdisciplinarity of terminology results from the multifaceted character of terminological units, as linguistic items (linguistics), as conceptual elements (logic, ontology, cognitive sciences) and as vehicles of communication in both scientific and generic language contexts. Accordingly, the theory of terminology can be identified as having three different dimensions: the cognitive, the linguistic, and the communicative dimension (Sager: 1990). The linguistic dimension of the theory of terminology can be detected mainly in the linguistic mechanisms that set the patterns for term formation and term forms.
On Points of Contact between Scientific and Technical Translation and Cognitive Linguistics
New Voices in Translation Studies, 2015
This paper reports on potential points of contact between scientific and technical translation (STT) and cognitive linguistics (CL) and attempts to answer the question to what extent cognitive linguistics may be usefully applied to the study of STT. To do so, the paper surveys various theoretical components of the cognitive linguistic framework and illustrates how these components can be applied in modelling different contextual and textual aspects of scientific and technical translation. From a contextual perspective, special consideration is given to the concept of common ground and the field of cognitive semantics, which can be used to model shared knowledge and implicit knowledge in the knowledge-intense field of STT. From a textual perspective, the emphasis will be on the cognitive linguistic notion of linguistic construal, which can be used to model relevant linguistic aspects of STT from a cognitively plausible point of view. Several prototypical examples from the Cologne Specialized Translation Corpus (CSTC) will be discussed in cognitive linguistic terms in order to demonstrate the explanatory power of this framework in the context of translation studies.
A HARD-SCIENCE LINGUISTICS VIEW OF TRANSLATION
LACUS Forum, 2017
THE PRESENT STUDY deals with the specific aspects of translation of texts between two languages and two cultures, the source and target cultures. The task of translation is a complex one, and it includes discussion not only of possible dictionary translation equivalents but also the workings behind the so called task of decoding and re-encoding from one language to another. This involves the discussion of expectations triggered in the source text reader and the task of the translator to match the expectations triggered in the target text reader. This can be done by anticipating the expectations of the target audience, which is based on previous experience of translators with the particular text genres. These complex subtasks are presented within the HL (Human Linguistics) model of the task of translation. IN A TRADITIONAL VIEW, the role of a translator is to decode the language of a text and then re-encode it into another language. Although this view is still widely held in practice in the field of translation, it is well-known to be deficient, as it leaves out important aspects of social and psychological effect. This paper will discuss some of the key issues and then through an example under study will present an overview of a Hard-Science Linguistics (HSL) approach to translation. 1. SOME CURRENT RESEARCH BACKGROUND. There is a reasearch project underway (Burazer, in progress) dealing with the sociolinguistic aspects of translation and the way in which and the extent to which they influence the quality of translation. The interim results of the investigation into translation of a piece of legal document from English into Slovene have shown roughly that if we compare the quality of translation of a legal text of a translation studies student (TS student) to that of a law student, TS students will show a higher level of proficiency in micro level language skills such as the use of grammar and vocabulary, while law students will show more skill on the macro linguistic level such as the overall use of register (appropriate to legal texts) and overall meaning of the text. One such example 1 shows that legal students were much less reluctant to use repetition of a certain expression within the same sentence than TS students. TS students were more concerned with the overall text form than with translating the actual meaning. Therefore, being concerned with the actual text effect on the target reader, they used reference words instead of repetition: instead of repeating [MANAGER] several times, 1 The example is taken from a short text, a confidentiality clause in an employment contract. The text was used in the experiment to which we refer throughout the paper (Burazer, doctoral dissertation, in progress).
Terminological Variation in Source Texts and Translations: A Pilot Study
Meta: Journal des traducteurs, 2011
In this article, it is assumed that the choice of terminological variants in specialized source texts is sometimes cognitively motivated and that this motivation is reflected in the choice of equivalents in the target texts. On the basis of a pilot study, we will present a method for comparing the cognitively motivated terminological variants in source texts and their translations. The corpus in the pilot study is composed of three Galician source texts and their English translations. The texts are scientific articles addressing the economic effects of environmental disasters on fisheries. A quantitative study was first carried out in which the number of unique terms in each source text was compared to the number of unique translations of these terms. Next, each unique combination of a source term and its translation equivalent was subjected to a qualitative analysis. A value was manually assigned in order to qualify the “cognitive distance” between the source term and its translati...
Exploring the Pragmatic Relationship Between Word Meaning and Textual Content in a Scientific Paper
Bulletin of Yerevan University B: Philology
The ultimate goal of any communicative act is to create meaning. The meaningful combination of language units creates the overall content of oral or written communication and realizes the communicative intent of the writer or speaker. The aim of the present article is to study how the communicative intent of the writer unfolds through the use of words having a specific semantic component as part of the lexical meaning. Words that have a negative semantic component as part of denotative meaning as well as phrases which contain one or more words with negative denotative meaning have been picked out from the article “Genocide” by R. Lemkin[1] and studied. The communicative-semantic and pragmatic analyses of the practical material has revealed that with the help of the words and phrases containing negative referential meaning, the author creates a convincing and powerful content and achieves his goal, which is to condemn genocidal activities. Key words: semantics, lexicology, word mea...