Linguistics and the Language of Translation

This book is for students of translation, languages and linguistics who would like to enhance their understanding of the relationships between these areas of study. The book uses explanation, discussion and practice to make explicit the forms of knowledge of language and of translation that makes translators successful. Chapters on the development of translation studies in the west and on contemporary approaches to translation provide the disciplinary context within which the processes and products of translating are studied. The theoretical and academic context for the chapters in which application is focal is provided by the book's flexible and forward-looking approach to meaning and translation. Meaning is seen as a temporary relationship between participants in language events and translation as a creative activity that contributes to such events. From this position, interaction between language study, linguistics and translation studies is seen as mutually enriching.

Five practical chapters cover sounds and rhythms, lexis, collocation and semantic prosody, texture, register, cohesion, coherence, implicature, speech and text acts, text and genre analysis, clausal thematicity and transitivity and the expression through language choices of ideological positions.

Key Features

• Each chapter provides examples for analysis and translating practice based on a variety of text types, including poems, prose, drama, newspaper and journal articles, promotional materials and texts for tourists.
• Examples are drawn mainly from Danish, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, but most practice sections can be used for analysis and translation into any language from English
• The book can be used at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.