Bài giữa kỳ môn Lý Thuyết Dịch - No1

 

I. Answer the following questions:  (40 points)

1. What are the different current views on translation?

The following quotes taken from different sources provide an overview of the range of diversity of opinions on the concent al tan translation:

 a.  Translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style. (Nida & Taber 1974: 12) language

b. Translation is the replacement of textual material in one language (source language) by equivalent textual material in another language (target language). (Catford 1965: 20)

c. Translation is the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of another equivalent text in a second language. (Hartmann & Stock 1972: 713)

d. Translation is the expression in another language (or target language) of what has been expressed in another (source language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalencies. (Dubois 1973, cited in Bell 1991: 5)

e. Translation is a procedure which leads from a written SL text to an õptimally equivalent TL text, and which requires the syntactic, semantic, stylistic and text pragmatic comprehension by the translator of the original text. (Wilss 1982a: 112)

f. Translation, as the process of conveying messages across linguistic and cultural barriers, is an eminently communicative activity, one whose use could well be considered in a wider range of teaching situations than may currently be the case. (Tudor, cited in Duff 1989: 5)

g. Translating is a communicative process which takes place within a social context. (Hatim & Mason 1990: 3)

h. Translating is the transformation of a text originally in one language into an equivalent text in a different language retaining, as far as possible, the content of the message, and the formal features and the roles of the original text. (Bell 1991: XIII)

2. What is Nida's general theory of translating?                                  

(The file sent will be named after each student’s name. Plagiarism will lead to failure)

Nida recommends that translation should not be so engrossed with stylistic details that the very act of translation becomes impossible. This is an important recommendation because when the cultural distance between the source language (SL) and the target language (TL) is extended, it would be difficult. to preserve the style of the source language. text (SLT).

What Nida really wishes to arrive at is that in translating one must respect these features of the SL and rather than replicating the patterns of the SL, one must exploit the potentialities of the TL so as to make changes 'which distinctive structural forms of the TL. Nida emphasises that in may be necessary to produce the message in the translating the translator must attempt to reproduce the meaning of a passage as understood by the writer

Nida's discussion of the nature of translating and translation may be the most relevant points for our purposes. In the translating process, Nida lays emphasis on the role of grammatical analysis. He is critical of the approach where it is assumed that one can translate without knowing anything about linguistics, and where translation has been regarded only as a complicated form of talking or writing in which one decodes from one language and encodes into another. For Nida, this is a false assumption. He argues that a careful analysis of what exactly goes on in the process of translating has shown that instead of going directly from one set of surface structures to another, a competent translator actually goes through a three-stage process: Analysis, Transfer, and Restructuring . According to this process, the translator first analyses the message of the SLT into its simplest and structurally clearest forms, transfers the analysed material in his mind from the SL to the TL which is the most appropriate for the audience who s/he intends to reach

II. Translation practice

1. Read the text and find out the features of the situational context (30 points)

           Fluctuation is a term which is used for describing the interdependence between episodic, fragmentary experiences which we make everyday, and structured knowledge which we need to accommodate anew, haphazardly made experiences, such as the meaning of hitherto unknown words or metaphors, the impact of new stories, and all the other experiences we make when we try to find adequate solutions for translation problems. Like any language user, translators strive to develop standard translation procedures which enable them, consciously or subconsciously, to render textual input by projecting source-text items onto the standard lexical (terminological), phraseological, syntactic, and textual patterns of the target linguistic repertoires. At least for translators who in their professional life enjoy the tremendous privilege of having to cope only with a fairly homogeneous spectrum of texts, translation is in part a habit. In order to practise habits, a translator has to learn them. This seems to be commonplace observation, but to be aware of its pedagogical significance, it is fundamental to the preparation of translation-teaching materials. 

 

Field:  Some things translators need to keep in mind

Tenor:  Authority to the reader.

Mode:  written in a book (a form part of a book to comment about translation)

 

 2. Translate the text into Vietnamese (30 points) 

    Sự biến động là một thuật ngữ được sử dụng để mô tả sự phụ thuộc lẫn nhau giữa những giai đoạn mà chúng ta tạo nên hàng ngày và kinh nghiệm đủ để nắm được những cái mới, có nhiều kinh nghiệm ngẫu nhiên có ví dụ như ý nghĩa của các từ ngữ hoặc biện pháp ẩn dụ mà trước giờ chưa biết, hay bài học đằng sau của những câu chuyện mới, và tất cả những trải nghiệm khác mà ta trải qua khi cố tìm ra các cách hợp lý khi dịch. Giống như bất kỳ người học ngôn ngữ nào, người dịch giả luôn cố gắng tuân theo các bước dịch sao cho chuẩn nhất có thể. Chuyển văn bản gốc sang văn bản đích bằng cách dẫn các phần văn bản gốc theo từ vựng (thuật ngữ), cụm từ, cú pháp và văn phong của ngôn ngữ đích một cách có chủ địch hoặc không. Ít ra thì những dịch giả cũng không quá vất vả khi chỉ phải xử lý một đống văn bản đầy đủ, dịch thuật phần nào đã trở thành chuyện quen thuộc. Để rèn luyện nó, người phiên dịch phải học ngôn ngữ. Điều này thì ai cũng biết, nhưng để nhận thức được ý nghĩa sư phạm của nó, điều cơ bản là phải chuẩn bị các tài liệu giảng dạy dịch thuật.