Target. International Journal of Translation Studies - Online First

This article examines the two Japanese back-translations of Arthur Waley’s English rendition (1925–1933) of Murasaki Shikibu’s 源氏物語 Genji monogatari ‘The tale of Genji’ to underscore the complexities of back-translation as process and product. The back-translations by Samata Hideki (2008–2009), and Mariya Marie and Moriyama Megumi (2017–2019) are clearly attempts to reinvigorate the millennium-old Japanese tale and renew interest among the domestic readership, but they also serve to canonize Waley’s version. It is important that these two back-translations be read against a long history of successful translations of the novel — both intralingual and interlingual — to see the peculiarities of the new textual interventions. Unlike what usually happens with translations in general, the back-translators engage with two source texts (by Shikibu and by Waley) instead of one. Through close textual analysis, this study aims to demonstrate how back-translations can be an ideal site for exploring issues related to rewriting, canonization, retranslation, and textual authority in historical and cultural contexts.

Traditionally, Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies (CTIS) scholars have approached Multilectal Mediated Communication (MMC) tasks separately, partly due to methodological reasons, partly due to the tendency, identified by Blumczynski and Hassani (2019) in the wider field of Translation Studies (TS), to conceptualize language mediation according to discrete, absolute categories, often opposed in dichotomies (interpreting/translation, source text/target text, oral/written). However, actual instances of MMC are complex and entail many dimensions that frequently overlap across tasks and relate to each other in multifarious ways (Marais 2014). While dichotomous epistemologies favor the isolation of tasks and limit the scope of application of methods and constructs, complexity epistemologies cater for the diversity of linguistic, social, and environmental variables, and their impact on each other (Marín 2023). Such an epistemic stance allows us to identify theoretical synergies, developing constructs and models to empirically investigate different aspects of tasks both individually and in relation to each other to inform a general cognitive theory of MMC. In this article, I revisit the translation task model (Marín 2021) as a construct that could be instrumental to describe mediators’ interaction with the task from an extended perspective. In order to do so, the notion of ‘constraint’ is introduced and further explained according to Baggs and Chemero’s distinction between habitat and umwelt (2018). I argue that empirical data can be described according to these categories and, in turn, the resulting descriptions applied to the development of a general theory of MMC.

In this article, we consider influential theories and models of simultaneous interpreting through the prism of current theories and findings in psycholinguistics. We review evidence suggesting that meaning is routinely accessed during comprehension, and, on this basis, suggest that it is unlikely that interpreters produce translation equivalents without accessing meaning. We also reflect on data showing cross-linguistic activation in two-language settings, and suggest that such cross-linguistic activation regularly takes place in simultaneous interpreting, without interfering with the processing of meaning. Finally, we consider the role of prediction in simultaneous interpreting. Evidence suggests that prediction regularly takes place during simultaneous interpreting and may facilitate the interpreting process. On the basis of this theoretical analysis, we consider that simultaneous interpreting involves a synergy, rather than just an overlap, of comprehension and production. We outline the pedagogical implications of our conclusions, and explain why viewing simultaneous interpreting from this new perspective may open up directions for future research.

Replication has the potential to substantiate tentative research claims and consolidate the existing evidence base. Translation and interpreting (T&I) scholars have argued for the need for replication and generated initial data on practices and attitudes towards replication. In three inter-linked studies described in this article, we shed further light on how replication is perceived, practiced, and expected by relevant stakeholders. We find that (a) most of the T&I journal editors surveyed support replication, but give lower priority to direct replication; (b) the overall prevalence rate of replication was 0.6% among 3807 research articles published in eleven leading T&I journals (2000–2022), and most of the identified replications were partial replication; and (c) the majority of the T&I researchers who participated in this research expected their study to be replicated based on various alterations. These findings help us develop an enhanced understanding of replication and formulate strategies to promote replication in empirical T&I studies.

Conceptual theories are generally understood as more or less static models that provide an argumentative basis for a scholar’s work. They present their intellectual genealogies through citation and referencing by which they are connected to existing works. The purpose of this article is to promote an alternative understanding, namely, that theories be treated as historical phenomena, which are influenced by space and time and are therefore constantly changing. Using the theoretical works of Hans J. Vermeer and Andrei V. Fedorov as examples, the article will trace their respective handling of secondary sources, their roots, and connect them to the subsequent circulation of these theories, their routes. In so doing, we suggest a more complex and unpredictable relationship between the roots and routes of theoretical models.

There has been substantial scholarly interest in extralinguistic cultural references (ECRs) in translation, especially in audiovisual translation (AVT). However, most scholars have investigated subtitling from English into other languages. Although China has a long tradition of film production, few studies have investigated the subtitling of ECRs from Chinese into English. This article attempts to remedy this by investigating the translation strategies, translation strategy distribution, and fidelity indexes of six subtitled versions of Chinese-language films. We compare our results with Gottlieb’s (2009) results on Danish subtitles, and find that both Chinese and Danish subtitlers hold a target-oriented attitude. We then investigate the share of the strategies in the subtitling of ECRs across different Chinese films and determine that this varies by genre and that the difference in the fidelity index among films of different genres is substantial. The translation of epic films appears to be highly faithful, whereas that of crime and gangster films is much less faithful.