Babel - Volume 67, Issue 4, 2021

Abstract

The emergence of crowdsourcing has opened up novel ways to initiate, produce and deliver translations in our digitally connected world. New practices and processes brought up by these phenomena have undeniably impacted different collectives with an interest in translation, such as language service providers (LSPs), professionals, and Translation Studies (TS). It has also been argued that crowdsourcing can impact public perceptions of translation, rising ethical concerns, issues related to the visibility of translation, or whether everyone can potentially translate (McDonough-Dolmaya 2012). This paper analyzes its potential impact on the realm of professional translation, an issue raised several years ago by a European Union Commission publication (2012, 37–38). It critically analyzes whether the much-feared socioeconomic and socio-professional impact on working conditions of professionals is underway or not. It represents an attempt at charting the potential influence of crowdsourcing on the profession through a critical review of existing literature and industry publications.

Abstract

Translating Emily Brontë’s (1818–1848) Wuthering Heights (1847) into Arabic is a complex and multifaceted task. This paper explores the challenges involved in this task by discussing distinctive features of Brontë’s style and their counterparts in Mamdouh Haqqi’s Arabic translation of the novel. Stylistic features under focus include lexis, figurative language, and structure. As for Brontë’s lexis, it intricately knits elements like characters, setting, and themes. To take their readers to the unpredictable world of Wuthering Heights, translators try to find Arabic equivalents suggesting the associations and connotations of the Source Text (ST) style. Among the obstacles translators need to overcome are lexical gaps, as some lexicalized thoughts and experiences in English have no lexicalized equivalents in Arabic. Resorting to paraphrases may result in sacrificing the compactness of the source text (ST) and losing some shades of meaning. Further complications result from dealing with figurative language. Conveying Brontë’s imagery, personifications, and references to abstract notions in terms of material objects requires thoughtful consideration. Furthermore, the structure of Brontë’s language significantly expresses characters’ attitudes and other subtle traits. Less vivacious translations are expected when the function of expressions in the ST eludes translators’ attention. Throughout the discussion, suggestions are made to provide readers of the text in Arabic with better access to the ST. At the same time, the researcher acclaims Haqqi’s translation which reflects a considerable effort to make a landmark of English/world literature accessible to Arab readers.

Abstract

Jean-Claude Izzo, an author committed to reality, recreates in his work Le Soleil des mourants the life of an indigent condemned to exclusion and loneliness. His critique also extends to contemporary society, both urban and dehumanized, and to the institutions and organisms that govern it, incapable of coping with social stigmas. This paper aims to disentangle, through a semantic-stylistic analysis, the homeless figure who stands as the cornerstone around which the story revolves. This paper also tries to identify the textual, linguistic, and cultural singularities that, from a translation studies approach, are regarded as specific translation challenges in this novel. This study puts forth a proposal for the Spanish translation of a selection of passages that support our arguments. The translation decisions are made according to the concept of communicative equivalence (Wotjak 2015) and to the taxonomy of techniques compiled by Hurtado Albir (2008, 269–271). The paper concludes that the concept of communicative equivalence has become a relevant methodology for the translation of Le Soleil des mourants, as it enables the translator to render the denotative elements of the message, the connotative and expressive use of the language, and the author’s communicative intention.

Abstract

Pushed by the increasing internationalization of education and recent economic dynamics, training programs are shifting their focus to acquiring competences and know-how through real-life materials to enhance learners’ employability and access to the work market. Moreover, recent research has called for the implementation of editing/revision content in translation programs, overcoming the assumed distance between translation and editing/revision professions. In light of social constructivism and process-oriented pedagogical trends in translation training, an intensive twenty-hour seminar was designed and piloted in a Master’s degree program in Specialized Translation with the intent of increasing students’ awareness of the translation process, including translation revision and their sense of perceived competence. Rasch analysis of pre- and post-test questionnaires detected positive changes in students’ self-perceived proficiency in translation, translation revision, and editing, with critical implications for the usefulness of process-oriented, realistic approaches integrating both translation and editing/revision content in translation training programs.

Abstract

The present study aims to demonstrate the relevance of topic modeling as a new research tool for analyzing research trends in the T&I field. Until now, most efforts to this end have relied on manual classification based on pre-established typologies. This method is time- and labor-consuming, prone to subjective biases, and limited in describing a vast amount of research output. As a key component of text mining, topic modeling offers an efficient way of summarizing topic structure and trends over time in a collection of documents while being able to describe the entire system without having to rely on sampling. As a case study, the present paper applies the technique to analyzing a collection of abstracts from four Korean Language T&I journals for the 2010s decade (from 2010 to 2019). The analysis proves the technique to be highly successful in uncovering hidden topical structure and trends in the abstract corpus. The results are discussed along with implications of the technique for the T&I field.

Abstract

This pilot study investigates the formulaic phraseology most frequently used in highly formulaic political documents by examining a self-built bilingual parallel corpus of 43 speeches delivered in United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meetings by Chinese representatives. The study also probes corpus-based approaches to explore formulaic phraseology and demonstrates a method to retrieve Chinese formulaic phraseology from the UNSC corpus. Formulaic phraseology is often seen in political discourse. It can be defined as a sequence, continuous or discontinuous, of words or other meaning elements that are, or appear to be, prefabricated, stored and retrieved whole from memory at the time of use rather than being subject to generation or analysis by the language grammar. This study begins with a literature review of formulaic phraseology, including its features and significance in simultaneous interpreting. It then exhibits a four-step retrieval process with the Sketch Engine software program to acquire Chinese formulaic phraseology from the corpus to fill previous studies’ gap. Key functional units of the Sketch Engine, including Wordlist, N-grams, and Concordance, are used to extract formulaic phraseology from the UNSC corpus. Methodological issues involved in identifying formulaic phraseology, such as length of phraseology and quantitative criteria (frequency and dispersion thresholds), are also discussed in the study. Three types of formulaic phraseology are identified: (1) greeting representatives and other members and expressing appreciation; (2) expressing concerns about the topic of the meeting; (3) expressing China’s viewpoints about the topic of the meeting. The training of interpreters would be more effective if this categorization of formulaic phraseology is incorporated into the curriculum.

This article reviews Ideological Manipulation of Children’s Literature through Translation and Rewriting: Travelling across Times and Places

This article reviews Communication across cultures: The linguistics of texts in translation