Babel - Volume 65, Issue 4, 2019

Abstract

This article seeks to explore the nature and function of non-renditions in a corpus of transcriptions of 55 authentic interpreted court proceedings from Barcelona (the TIPp corpus). By doing so, it establishes a dialogue with Cheung’s (2017) contribution about non-renditions in court interpreting in Hong Kong. The transcriptions of the TIPp corpus were annotated using the software EXAMARALDA following Wadenjsö’s (1998) distinction between “talk as text” and “talk as activity”. Non-renditions were considered a part of “talk as activity”. A distinction was made between justified non-renditions, i.e. those that were used to ask for a pause to interpret, to ask for clarification, to confirm possibly misheard information and to retrieve parts of the original message in case of a lapsus, and unjustified non-renditions, e.g. when interpreters give advice to the defendants or warn them, when they answer on behalf of defendants, or when they supply information not provided in the original utterances. The findings reveal alarming averages of non-renditions in the bilingual parts of the trial (58.3 per bilingual hour), with a higher ratio of unjustified non-renditions. These findings have a clear correlation with the poor working conditions of court interpreters in Spain and reveal an urgent need for professionalisation of this practice in this country.

Abstract

According to functional theories, the translation process is a specific and receiver-dependent action, the Skopos of which, however, does not always have to correspond to that of the source text. According to functionalism, the communicative function of a text can be different in the target culture, and the translation should be adapted accordingly to the new Skopos. In translating, the focus is no longer on equivalence but on the adequacy of the translation, although in the best case equivalence or consistency of function should be sought. Since this is rarely entirely feasible, the translators themselves should decide in the course of the translation process which text dimension they would give priority to: semantic (content), syntactic (form) or pragmatic (meaning). A text grammatical and text semantic analysis of the coherence and isotope in the translation of Georg Trakl’s poems into Serbian aims to determine which dimension the translator Branimir Živojinović preferred. The study has shown that he almost completely achieves text equivalence, with few deviations in favour of form, which, however, do not disturb the coherence of the selected corpus.

Abstract

Working memory and interpreting expertise are generally acknowledged as two essential factors that affect the interpreting process. With reference to the compensation model, the independent influences model, and the rich-get-richer model proposed in cognitive psychology concerning the interplay between working memory and domain expertise, this experimental study, by varying the delivery speed of the source speech, examines the interplay between working memory and interpreting expertise in the setting of simultaneous interpreting. This study finds that (1) working memory and interpreting expertise can each have a positive impact on simultaneous interpreting quality; (2) other factors being equal, interpreting expertise can have a greater impact on simultaneous interpreting than working memory, and when the interpreting task proves more challenging, interpreting expertise can help relieve the pressure triggered by inadequate working memory; (3) working memory and interpreting expertise function differently in simultaneous interpreting in different stages: for beginner interpreting students, working memory’s contribution to the quality of simultaneous interpreting is more prominent, while for advanced interpreting students, interpreting expertise plays a more direct and prominent role, and the composite influence of working memory and interpreting expertise on simultaneous interpreting performance is weakened due to the increasing impact of other factors.

Abstract

This study aims to identify and compare the strategies applied by native Farsi Translators, Parviz Dariyush (1975) and Soroush Habibi (2009), in rendering the vernacular dialect (Chicano English) of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men (1965) as a sociolect into Farsi. One hundred samples which contained seven unique characteristics of vernacular dialect limited to the two main characters of the novel, George and Lennie, were extracted from the novel with their Farsi equivalents. Sienkiewicz (1984, as cited in Berezowski 1997: 35) proposed strategies for the translation of dialects are taken as the model for this study to investigate the way dialectal features are dealt with in the selected parts and to check whether the procedure proposed by Sienkiewicz is sufficient and adequate for their translation. Analysing these samples, the results showed that one-to-one transference of dialectal elements is not practically possible into Farsi. However, both translators used phonological, syntactical, and morphological irregularities of Colloquial Farsi to show that the language of the novel is not standard language. Approximate Variety Substitution is the most frequent strategy used by Habibi and Dariyush. The aim of this strategy is to select a colloquial variety that has some dialectal features such as lexical, phonological, and morphological specifics and at the same time does not present an obvious recognizable TL dialect.

Résumé

Le roman de Faïza Guène, Les gens du Balto, nous plonge dans un texte émaillé d’argot, de verlan, de structures propres à l’oral, d’expressions métaphoriques, parfois aussi de termes étrangers. Les personnages s’expriment dans une langue éloignée des normes de l’écrit. Une forme d’écriture digne du documentaire avec ses voix propres, une langue hybride qui relève d’un sociolecte reproduisant le parler de la banlieue parisienne. Ce choix stylistique constitue un véritable défi pour le traducteur. Après avoir présenté brièvement l’auteure et le roman, nous analyserons les spécificités linguistiques du récit à partir d’un corpus représentatif pour ensuite examiner les stratégies adoptées par la traductrice.

Abstract

Audiovisual translation has become one of the main means of communication between cultures. Although the number of Chinese films that reach Spanish audiences is rather limited, the cinema is still a very powerful tool in bridging the gap between these two cultures. This paper aims to give an overview of the situation of Chinese cinema in Spain through audiovisual translation. In order to do so, a database of 500 Chinese films translated into Spanish has been created. For each film, different types of information organized into three blocks have been collected: firstly, data regarding the source film in Chinese; secondly, data on the translated film; and finally, information about paratexts related to the film in Chinese, Spanish and English. Through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of our data the main trends in Chinese-Spanish audiovisual translation from the mid-1970s to today are shown. Our results identify the most popular Chinese directors and the main genres and translation modalities. We point out the role of the translator and the importance of mediating languages; and, finally, we highlight the significance of distribution channels, particularly film festivals. This article aims at filling the gap with regard to research in audiovisual translation as an intercultural exchange between China and Spain.

This article reviews Explicitation in Consecutive Interpreting

This article reviews Perspectives on Retranslation: Ideology, Paratexts, Methods