Target. International Journal of Translation Studies - Volume 20, Issue 1, 2008

This paper deals with the main results of a systematic investigation (Martín 2005), supported by concordance analysis, of the metaphorical expressions found in Reiß-Vermeer (1984) and Holz-Mänttäri (1984), two works that in the 1980s established the theoretical foundations of German functionalism. Based on the cognitive theory of metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 1999; Lakoff 1987; Johnson 1987; Lakoff 1993), the analysis led to the identification of two conceptual metaphors that played a crucial role in the articulation of German functionalism: the TRANSFER metaphor and the TARGET metaphor. The paper focuses on the main implications of the use of these metaphors and on the contradictions they create. A broadening of the functionalist theoretical framework is then proposed with the goal of overcoming these contradictions.

In the following article, an outline of a new linguistic theory of translation is given that can be of use to theorists and practitioners alike. The linguistic theories of the 1950s and 1960s were too normative and a-contextual to account for all the forms and aspects of translation; while the ‘skeptical turn’ of Translation Studies has succeeded in unmasking the ideological quality of all theories, but cannot produce a ‘cybernetics’ of translation, an account of how translation is materially done. A new linguistic approach can produce such a practical account, provided that the pragmatic level of analysis is given a prominent role and that a touch of non-scientific skepticism is maintained.

This article deals with the beginnings of the translation of Modern Hebrew literature into Arabic, and at the same time with the beginnings of Arabic literary writing by Jewish intellectuals. We will focus on Salim al-Dawudi’s translation of the first Hebrew novel, Avraham Mapu’s Ahavat Tsiyon [The love of Zion] (1853), one of the most important texts to advocate the renewal of ties between Jews and Palestine. Al-Dawudi’s translation was published in Egypt in two non-identical editions in 1899 and 1921–1922, and is probably the first Arabic translation of Modern Hebrew literature. When he declared that his translation was designed to remind his people that Hebrew was a living language, al-Dawudi accorded his translation Jewish national aspirations, which is perhaps the reason for the mixed aims of his translation’s policy. On the one hand, there are phenomena that illustrate his desire to be accepted in the target culture, such as neglect of the integrity of the text, raising its stylistic register, preserving the ethical norms of the source text and even a tendency to paraphrase. On the other hand, there are places that display over-consideration of the source language and text, such as numerous deviations from the standard linguistic, syntactical and grammatical rules of Arabic, preservation of elements unique to Jewish culture and a multitude of Hebrew interferences in the Arabic translation. This unsystematic behavior apparently reflects a lack of literary skills, deep admiration of the source text (and language), and the fact that the translation was addressed mainly to a Jewish audience.

Translation technologies constitute an important new field of interdisciplinary study lying midway between computer science and translation, and its professional development will largely depend on the attention it is given from the academic point of view. In this paper different approaches to the subject are examined so as to provide us with a basis for an internal analysis of the field of translation technologies and to structure its content. Following criteria based on professional practice and on the idiosyncrasies of the computer tools and resources that play a part in translation activity, we present our definition of translation technologies and of the field, classified in five blocs.

This paper deals with the translation of the English-language Common Law legislation of the Republic of Cyprus into Greek. The legislation introduced to Cyprus in 1935 was common law codified by the British for use in the colonies. The aim of the paper is threefold: (a) to research the historical background and highlight the communicative implications for a community where the language of the law is not the mother tongue of the people, (b) to reconstruct the methods the translators applied when they translated the Law of Civil Wrongs from English into Greek within the common law framework of the Republic of Cyprus, and (c) to establish how the actual process of translation affected the target LSP.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, it seeks to introduce and explain the CIS (Circumscribed Infinites Scheme), a deconstructive scheme for translating poetry; and, on the other, it aims at analyzing the scheme’s impact on the translation into English of a variety of poems by Jorge Luis Borges. Devised by the present author, who is also responsible for the translations analyzed, the CIS is a translational scheme whereby meaning is understood as an inexhaustible textual effect, and which, in its theoretical elucidation, seeks to raise the practicing translator’s awareness of the control he or she might have over the degree of infinite exegetic circumscription — and subsequent infinite exegetic recreation — during the translation process.

According to Itamar Even-Zohar, for a large social entity to be maintained, a culture repertoire must be invented to create internal cohesion and external differentiation, and from this repertoire certain items are chosen to build a collective identity. In contrast, imported items, if regarded as threats to this identity, may meet with resistance. This theory may shed light on Even-Zohar’s hypotheses that the “normal” position assumed by translated literature in the literary polysystem tends to be a peripheral one, and that translation tends towards acceptability when it is at the periphery.