Target. International Journal of Translation Studies - Volume 23, Issue 1, 2011

Explicitation has long been considered a tendency in translation and has been empirically investigated by a number of scholars. This paper responds to Chesterman´s (2004a: 47) call to test explicitation phenomena on different translation modalities and types, and tests the explicitation hypothesis against a comparable web corpus containing 40m words. The fast evolving field of web localization was selected given that (1) if explicitation is a potential universal or general tendency, it should be equally present in current and future translation types; (2) localization is a specific case of translation in which explicitation might not be expected due to space constraints and web usability guidelines; (3) research using comparable web corpora has produced evidence contradicting other proposed general tendencies, such as conventionalization (Jiménez-Crespo 2009a; Kenny 2001). The results of the study confirm that despite specific constraints, localized texts show explicitation if contrasted with non-translated web texts belonging to the same digital genre.

Additions and omissions of connectives (e.g. conjunctions, connective adverbs, etc.) are a frequent phenomenon in translation. The present article reports on a study whose aim was to elucidate translators’ motivations for performing such shifts, focusing on the addition of connectives. The study was carried out on a bidirectional parallel corpus containing translations of business texts between English and German. Connective additions and omissions were identified, counted and analyzed taking into account the surrounding linguistic context of the shift in question, possibly associated shifts performed by the translator, alternative translation options, etc. It was found that the vast majority of identified shifts were attributable to previously established English-German contrasts in terms of syntax, lexis, and communicative norms. The findings suggest that it is unnecessary to assume that translators follow a “universal strategy” of explicitation, as it has often been done in the literature (cf. e.g. Blum-Kulka’s Explicitation Hypothesis).

Findings from research conducted into interpreted court proceedings have suggested that it is the interpreters’ rendition that the judiciary and jurors hear and upon which they base their evaluations of witnesses’ testimony. Previous research into the effect of foreign accent of witnesses indicated particular foreign accents negatively influence mock jurors’ evaluations of the testimony. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of interpreters’ foreign accents on the evaluation of witnesses’ testimony. Contrary to previous research, our results indicated that participants rated the witness more favourably when testimony was interpreted by an interpreter with a foreign language accent. Accented versions were all rated as more credible, honest, trustworthy and persuasive than the non-accented versions. This paper discusses the findings in the light of methodological concerns and limitations, and highlights the need for further research in the area.

Point of view in narrative has been identified in literary stylistics through the use of deixis, modality, transitivity and Free Indirect Discourse. These findings have also been applied to literature in translation (Bosseaux 2007). This article focuses on deictic cues in the narrative structure of Canne al Vento by Grazia Deledda in the original Italian and the English translation, following an earlier study focussing on constructing a particular point of view through mental processes of perception, the translation of which did not always reflect that point of view (Johnson 2010). Data emerging from a corpus-assisted study is examined qualitatively using a systemic-functional model in order to assess to what extent the point of view constructed by these cues in the ST is conveyed in the novel in translation.

This paper explores the notion of the death of the Translator, inspired by Barthes’ formulation of the death of the Author. It argues that the death of the Translator is caused by a loss of human agency in translation and is therefore most clearly exemplified in machine translation. Based on an avant-garde bilingual poetry project by a Taiwanese poet, the paper demonstrates that machine translation can produce unexpected new meanings through unpredictable routes of semantic and syntactic divergences from the source text. The poet’s use of transparency as physical medium and of machine translation as mediator raises the following questions: does translation actually allow us to ‘read through’ a source text? If so, to what extent is such translation ‘transparent’? How should we even come to terms with the concept of ‘transparency’ with respect to the meaning of a literary text in translation? The paper argues that in the bilingual project in question, machine translation plays the crucial function of bringing the reader’s attention back to the target language by way of delaying/blocking comprehension, hence rendering the corporeality of the target language ‘transparent’.

In addition to the two languages essentially involved in translation, that of the source text (L1) and that of the target text (L2), we propose a third language (L3) to refer to any other language(s) found either or both texts. L3 may appear in the source text (ST) or the target text (TT), actually appearing more frequently in STs in our case studies. We present a range of combinations for the convergence and divergence of L1, L2 and L3, for the case of feature films and their translations using examples from dubbed and subtitled versions of films, but we are hopeful that our tentative conclusions may be relevant to other modalities of translation, audiovisual and otherwise. When L3 appears in an audiovisual ST, we find a variety of solutions whereby L3 is deleted from or adapted to the TT. In the latter case, L3 might be rendered in a number of ways, depending on factors such as the audience’s familiarity with L3, and the possibility that L3 in the ST is an invented language.