Metonymic language use as a student translation problem
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Sonia Vandepitte
Abstract
The concept of translation problem plays an essential role in translation process and product studies and encompasses a wide variety of kinds of problems, including those of a linguistic nature. While Translation Studies seems to agree that a linguistic competence module is part of a translator’s required competences, it is not clear to what extent cross-linguistic differences actually pose problems to most translation students and therefore need a place in the training curriculum. Our study looks into the extent to which the translation of a linguistic construction that differs cross-linguistically raises translation process problems. Translators who are not aware of the restrictions (or translation tools that have not integrated the cross-linguistic differences) may, indeed, produce a translation that does not conform to the target language idiom. And translators who are aware of the restrictions will need to look for alternative formulations that are suited to the translation situation, and decide on the best translation from a range of possibilities. This chapter will discuss the methods applied in an investigation of a novel kind, which combines approaches from linguistics, psycholinguistics and Translation Studies.
Abstract
The concept of translation problem plays an essential role in translation process and product studies and encompasses a wide variety of kinds of problems, including those of a linguistic nature. While Translation Studies seems to agree that a linguistic competence module is part of a translator’s required competences, it is not clear to what extent cross-linguistic differences actually pose problems to most translation students and therefore need a place in the training curriculum. Our study looks into the extent to which the translation of a linguistic construction that differs cross-linguistically raises translation process problems. Translators who are not aware of the restrictions (or translation tools that have not integrated the cross-linguistic differences) may, indeed, produce a translation that does not conform to the target language idiom. And translators who are aware of the restrictions will need to look for alternative formulations that are suited to the translation situation, and decide on the best translation from a range of possibilities. This chapter will discuss the methods applied in an investigation of a novel kind, which combines approaches from linguistics, psycholinguistics and Translation Studies.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword xi
- Methods and strategies of process research 1
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Part I. Conceptual and methodological discussions
- Interpreting in theory and practice 13
- Reflections on the literal translation hypothesis 23
- Tracking translators’ keystrokes and eye movements with Translog 37
- Seeing translation from inside the translator’s mind 57
- Metonymic language use as a student translation problem 67
- Sight translation and speech disfluency 93
- Time lag in translation and interpreting 121
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Part II. Process research in interpreting and translation
- A new pair of glasses 149
- Are primary conceptual metaphors easier to understand than complex conceptual metaphors? 169
- Innovative subtitling 187
- Errors, omissions and infelicities in broadcast interpreting 201
- On cognitive processes during wordplay translation 219
- “Can you ask her about chronic illnesses, diabetes and all that?” 231
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Part III. Studies of interpreting and translation expertise
- Effects of linguistic complexity on expert processing during simultaneous interpreting 249
- Process and product in simultaneous interpreting 269
- Developing professional thinking and acting within the field of interpreting 301
- Results of the validation of the PACTE translation competence model 317
- “This led me to start thinking about how this happened, and what the process behind it would be” 345
- Publications by Birgitta Englund Dimitrova 361
- Notes on contributors 367
- Index 373
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword xi
- Methods and strategies of process research 1
-
Part I. Conceptual and methodological discussions
- Interpreting in theory and practice 13
- Reflections on the literal translation hypothesis 23
- Tracking translators’ keystrokes and eye movements with Translog 37
- Seeing translation from inside the translator’s mind 57
- Metonymic language use as a student translation problem 67
- Sight translation and speech disfluency 93
- Time lag in translation and interpreting 121
-
Part II. Process research in interpreting and translation
- A new pair of glasses 149
- Are primary conceptual metaphors easier to understand than complex conceptual metaphors? 169
- Innovative subtitling 187
- Errors, omissions and infelicities in broadcast interpreting 201
- On cognitive processes during wordplay translation 219
- “Can you ask her about chronic illnesses, diabetes and all that?” 231
-
Part III. Studies of interpreting and translation expertise
- Effects of linguistic complexity on expert processing during simultaneous interpreting 249
- Process and product in simultaneous interpreting 269
- Developing professional thinking and acting within the field of interpreting 301
- Results of the validation of the PACTE translation competence model 317
- “This led me to start thinking about how this happened, and what the process behind it would be” 345
- Publications by Birgitta Englund Dimitrova 361
- Notes on contributors 367
- Index 373
