Translation as Communication across Languages and Cultures

164 Pages·2015·1.73 MB·English

by  Juliane House

Translation as Communication across Languages and
Cultures
In this interdisciplinary book, Juliane House breaks new ground by situating translation within
Applied Linguistics. In thirteen chapters, she examines translation as a means of
communication across different languages and cultures and provides a critical overview of
different approaches to translation, of the link between culture and translation, and between
views of context and text in translation.
Featuring an account of translation from a linguistic-cognitive perspective, House covers
problematic issues such as the existence of universals of translation, cases of untranslatability
and ways and means of assessing the quality of a translation. Recent methodological and
research avenues such as the role of corpora in translation and the effects of globalization
processes on translation are presented in a neutral, non-biased manner. The book concludes
with a thorough, historical account of the role of translation in foreign language learning and
teaching and a discussion of the new challenges and problems of the professional practice of
translation in our world today.
Written by a highly experienced teacher and researcher in the field, Translation as
Communication across Languages and Cultures is an essential resource for students and
researchers of Translation Studies, Applied Linguistics and Communication Studies.
Juliane House is Emeritus Professor, Hamburg University, Distinguished Professor at
Hellenic American University, Athens and President of the International Association for
Translation and Intercultural Studies. Her key titles include Translation Quality Assessment: A
Model Revisited (1997), Translation (2009), Translational Action and Intercultural
Communication (2009), Translation: A Multidisciplinary Approach (2014) and Translation
Quality Assessment: Past and Present (Routledge, 2014).

First published 2016
by Routledge
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© 2016 Juliane House
The right of Juliane House to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
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identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
House, Juliane, author.
Translation as communication across languages and cultures / by Juliane House.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Translating and interpreting. 2. Intercultural communication. 3. Language and culture. 4. Sociolinguistics.
P306.2.H667 2016
418′.02—dc23
2015019533
ISBN: 978-0-415-73432-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-408-28983-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-66895-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
Contents
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I
Central concepts
1 The nature of translation as part of Applied Linguistics
Translation as part of Applied Linguistics
Translation as an essential part of today’s revolution in communication
Translation as cross-linguistic and cross-cultural communication
Translation as a cognitive process
Definition of translation and models of translation
2 Overview of different approaches to translation
Early linguistic, textual and communicative approaches
The (neo)hermeneutic approach
Descriptive translation studies
Postmodernist, postcolonial, feminist and deconstructionist views
Functionalistic, and action- and reception-theory related approaches
Discourse, pragmatic and functional approaches
3 Some new trends in translation studies
Ideology in translation studies
Ethics in translation studies
Political action in translation studies
Narrative approaches to translation
The role of translation in multicultural societies
Micro-historical studies of translation
Eco-translatology
4 Culture and translation
What is culture and what does culture do?
Old thinking about culture: national characters, mentalities, stereotypes
New thinking about culture: small cultures, communities of practice, superdiversity
Translation as intercultural communication
PART II
Translatability, universals, text, context and translation evaluation
5 From untranslatability to translatability
‘Linguistic relativity’ and translation: a historical overview
Recent empirical research on linguistic relativity and its impact on translation
Relativizing assumptions on non-translatability
Culture, context and translatability
6 Universals of translation?
Language universals and universals of translation
Translation universals
7 Text and context: a functional-pragmatic view
Context in different disciplines
Text and context in translation: translation as recontextualization and repositioning
Translation as recontextualization under the influence of English as a global lingua
franca
8 Translation quality assessment: review of approaches and practices
Different approaches to translation quality assessment
A linguistic model of translation quality assessment
Distinguishing between different types of translations and versions
Most recent revision of the House model (House 2014)
Some recent developments in testing translation quality
PART III
Some new research avenues in translation studies
9 Translation and bilingual cognition
Why we need a new linguistic-cognitive orientation
Introspective and retrospective translation process studies: how valid and reliable are
their outcomes?
Behavioural experiments on the translation process: how valid, reliable and insightful
are their outcomes?
Bilingual neuro-imaging studies: how useful and relevant are they for translation
studies?
A neuro-linguistic theory of the functioning of two languages in the brain
10 The role of corpora in translation studies
The use and function of corpora in translation
An example of a corpus-based, longitudinal, qualitative and quantitative translation
project
An example of a corpus-based case study of translation
11 Globalization and translation
What is globalization?
Globalization at different levels of language
The role of English as a global lingua franca for translation
PART IV
Translation practice in different societal domains
12 Translation and foreign language learning and teaching
The history of translation in foreign language learning and teaching
Alternative uses of translation in foreign language learning and teaching
Towards a more realistic view of translation in foreign language learning and teaching
13 The professional practice of translators: new challenges and problems
Ethics in the professional practice of translation
Translation and conflict in the practice of translation
Translation in multilingual institutions

Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
Figures

1.1 Model 1 of the translation process (adapted from Koller 2011: 94)
1.2 Model 2 of the translation process (adapted from Koller 2011: 95)
1.3 Model 3 of the translation process (adapted from Koller 2011: 98)
1.4 Model 4 of the translation process (adapted and translated from Koller 2011: 102)
6.1 Universals in translation?
8.1 A scheme for analysing and comparing originals and translations
8.2 A revised scheme for analysing and comparing originals and translation texts
9.1 A schematic representation of the components of verbal communication (adapted from
Paradis 2004: 227)
10.1 Translation and comparable corpora (Example: English-German)
Tables

10.1 Pragmatic contrasts between English and German original popular scientific texts as
seen from the frequency of selected linguistic items (1978–82) (adapted from Kranich et
al. 2012: 323)
10.2 Shining-through and contact-induced changes in translated and non-translated German
popular scientific texts (adapted from Kranich et al. 2012: 331)
10.3 Frequency of for instance in the popular science corpus (per 100,000 words, n=49)
10.4 Percentage of German translation equivalents of for example/for instance co-occurring
with so (n=143)
10.5 Use and frequency of so in comparable German texts (absolute numbers; non-connective
uses have not been counted)
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my daughter-in-law Tessa von Bloh for her expert help in reproducing the
figures in this volume.
Thanks are further due to the following publishers for their permission to reproduce material
from the following sources:
Gunter Narr, Tübingen: Figures 1.1 and 1.2 from W. Koller 2011 Einführung in die
Übersetzungswissenschaft, 8th.ed.
Brill Publishers, Leiden: Figure 1.3 from E. Nida and C. Taber 1969 The Theory and
Practice of Translation.
LKG Verwaltung (vorm. Langenscheidt) Berlin: Figure 1.4 from O. Kade 1968 Zufall und
Gesetzmäßigkeit in der Übersetzung (VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie Leipzig).
Benjamins Publishers, Amsterdam: Figure 9.1 from M. Paradis 2004 A Neurolinguistic
Theory of Bilingualism; Tables 10.1 and 10.2 from S. Kranich et al. (eds) 2011 Multilingual
Discourse Production.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright-holders. Please advise the publisher of any
errors or omissions, and these will be corrected in subsequent editions.
Translation as Communication across Languages and Cultures was originally
commissioned by Christopher N. Candlin for Longman Applied Linguistics.
Introduction
This book aims to to give an overview of the field of translation studies, accentuating its role
as part of Applied Linguistics. Given its philosophy and rationale, the book is the first of its
kind. It is firmly transdisciplinary in nature, and is based on research by scholars of translation
studies as well as those affiliated with related – in translation studies, however, often ignored
– neighbouring disciplines such as intercultural communication, cross-cultural research,
contrastive pragmatics, second language acquisition and discourse analysis. The research
reported and integrated into this text will also include the author’s own substantial work over
more than forty years in different disciplines: translation theory, discourse pragmatics,
politeness, misunderstanding, corpus linguistics, second language learning and teaching. The
book will give a broadly diversified account of different approaches to translation and
emphasizes the need for a view of the field that combines linguistic-, text- and discourse-based
perspectives with views stressing the context of translation in its widest sense so as to take
account, for example, of power- and gender-related issues, the human beings involved in
translation, the reasons for selecting certain texts for translation and suppressing others, and so
on. In the past decades, an often rather one-sided shift towards viewing translation as a
predominantly sociological, political and ideologically fuelled phenomenon seems to have
dominated translation studies. I believe that it is now time to provide a more balanced, and a
more comprehensive view of the complex field of translation studies and one that links it with
mainstream Applied Linguistics.