Table Of ContentLinguistics and the Language of Translation
Edinburgh Textbooks in Applied Linguistics
Titles in the series include:
An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
From Practice to Theory
by Alan Davies
Teaching Literature in a Second Language
by Brian Parkinson and Helen Reid Thomas
Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching
by Ian McGrath
The Social Turn in Second Language Acquisition
by David Block
Language Assessment and Program Evaluation
by Brian Lynch
Edinburgh Textbooks in Applied Linguistics
Series Editors: Alan Davies and Keith Mitchell
Linguistics and the
Language of Translation
Kirsten Malmkjær
Edinburgh University Press
© Kirsten Malmkjær, 2005
Transferred to Digital Print 2012
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
Typeset in Garamond
by Norman Tilley Graphics, Northampton,
and printed and bound
by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
A CIP record for this book is available from
the British Library
ISBN 0 7486 2055 9 (hardback)
ISBN 0 7486 2056 7 (paperback)
The right of Kirsten Malmkjær
to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Contents
Series Editors’ Preface vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xi
Dedication xii
1 From writings on translation to translation studies 1
2 Mapping and approaching translation studies 17
3 Translation and language 42
4 Sounds and rhythms in translation 70
5 Words and meanings in translation 86
6 Words in company 115
7 From words to texts 134
8 Perspectives and reflections in clauses and texts in translation 168
Conclusion 185
References 186
Index 197
Series Editors’ Preface
This series of single-author volumes published by Edinburgh University Press takes
a contemporary view of applied linguistics. The intention is to make provision for
the wide range of interests in contemporary applied linguistics which are provided
for at the Master’s level.
The expansion of Master’s postgraduate courses in recent years has had two effects:
1. What began almost half a century ago as a wholly cross-disciplinary subject has
found a measure of coherence so that now most training courses in Applied
Linguistics have similar core content.
2. At the same time the range of specialisms has grown, as in any developing
discipline. Training courses (and professional needs) vary in the extent to
which these specialisms are included and taught.
Some volumes in the series will address the first development noted above, while
the others will explore the second. It is hoped that the series as a whole will provide
students beginning postgraduate courses in Applied Linguistics, as well as language
teachers and other professionals wishing to become acquainted with the subject,
with a sufficient introduction for them to develop their own thinking in applied
linguistics and to build further into specialist areas of their own choosing.
The view taken of applied linguistics in the Edinburgh Textbooks in Applied
Linguistics Series is that of a theorising approach to practical experience in the
language professions, notably, but not exclusively, those concerned with language
learning and teaching. It is concerned with the problems, the processes, the mech-
anisms and the purposes of language in use.
Like any other applied discipline, applied linguistics draws on theories from
related disciplines with which it explores the professional experience of its
practitioners and which in turn are themselves illuminated by that experience. This
two-way relationship between theory and practice is what we mean by a theorising
discipline.
The volumes in the series are all premised on this view of Applied Linguistics as
a theorising discipline which is developing its own coherence. At the same time, in
order to present as complete a contemporary view of applied linguistics as possible
other approaches will occasionally be expressed.
viii Series Editors’ Preface
Each volume presents its author’s own view of the state of the art in his or her
topic. Volumes will be similar in length and in format, and, as is usual in a textbook
series, each will contain exercise material for use in class or in private study.
Alan Davies
W. Keith Mitchell
Preface
This book is for students of translation, languages and linguistics who would like
to enhance their understanding of the relationships between translation studies
and linguistics – of how linguistics can be applied to the creation, description and
constructive criticism of translations.
The book can be used at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It includes a
chapter on the development of translation studies in the west (Chapter 1) and
one on contemporary approaches to the discipline (Chapter 2). These provide the
disciplinary context within which the processes and products of translating are
studied; it is useful to be familiar with this context before tackling the more applied
parts of the book.
The third chapter outlines the theory of meaning underlying the book and the
mode of application of linguistics to translation studies adopted here. It is interesting
that in the relatively recent past, ‘linguistic science’ as a whole, or at least comparative
linguistics, has been viewed as what might justifiably be called ‘applied translation
studies’ by one set of scholars (see especially Roman Jakobson 1959: 233–4, see
Chapter 3, section 3.6.i), while translation theory, almost simultaneously, has been
viewed as an area within applied linguistics by another group of scholars (see
especially Ian Catford, 1965, who subtitles his book on translation theory An Essay
in Applied Linguistics; see Chapter 2, section 2.3.i). This book adopts neither of these
stances: There is obviously more to linguistics than the comparison of expressions
and texts in different languages; and the discipline of translation studies can no more
be exhausted by applying linguistics to it than disciplines such as literary studies,
journalism, or dramatology. Here, linguistics is applied to translation studies as a way
of attending to the language used in translations and their source texts: linguistic
insights, theoretical concepts and descriptive categories are drawn on in discussion
of the creation, description and constructive criticism of such texts. Chapter 3
thus provides a broader theoretical and academic context for the chapters where
application is focal; this will be helpful especially at postgraduate level. Under-
graduate students may find the chapter challenging, and prefer to move straight to
the remaining chapters (Chapters 4–8) which apply more directly descriptive and
theoretical linguistic notions to original texts and their translations.
The rationale for this application is that texts, whether translated or not, are made
