Basic Terms and Concepts for Talking about Translation

TL;DR

This video introduces basic terms and concepts in translation, such as translation vs. interpreting, source text vs. target text, genre, language functions, equivalence, translation approaches, translation units, translation procedures, and translation tools.

Transcript

hey hello everybody welcome to spanish 410 spanish translation with me professor jolly i'm a professor of spanish head of the department of modern and classical languages and your instructor in this course um so what i want to do is of course welcome you to spanish 410 and this is going to be our initial video its title is basic terms and concepts ... Read More

Key Insights

• 🪸 Translation and interpreting are two different processes: translation involves written language conversion, while interpreting involves oral language conversion.
• 🎯 Source text refers to the original text being translated from, while target text refers to the translated document or product.
• 🪈 Genres have specific conventions and rules that must be adhered to in order to belong to a particular genre.
• ❓ The three basic language functions are informative, vocative, and expressive.
• 👔 Equivalence, whether cognitive, formal, or dynamic, is an essential concept in translation.
• 🥶 Translation approaches, such as literal and free, determine the overall approach a translator takes.
• 🧡 Translation units dictate the size of the text that a translator focuses on, ranging from individual words to whole paragraphs.
• 🎭 Translation procedures involve specific operations that translators perform to produce equivalents for each translation unit.

Questions & Answers

Q: What is the difference between translation and interpreting?

Translation refers to written language conversion, while interpreting refers to oral language conversion.

Q: What are source text and source language?

Source text refers to the original text being translated from, while source language refers to the language of the source text.

Q: What is the difference between target text and target language?

Target text is the translated document or product, while target language refers to the language in which the target text is written.

Q: What are the three basic language functions?

The three basic language functions are informative (presenting facts), vocative (influencing behavior), and expressive (expressing experiences and emotions).

Q: What are the three types of equivalence?

The three types of equivalence are cognitive (equivalent content), formal (equivalent forms and structures), and dynamic (equivalent effect on the reader).

Q: What is a translation approach?

A translation approach is a description of the overall approach a translator adopts, such as literal translation (faithful to the source text) or free translation (natural-sounding to target language readers).

Q: What are some examples of translation procedures?

Examples of translation procedures include loanwords or borrowings, standard translation, shifts in word class, generalization, addition, and rearrangement.

Q: What are some translation tools and resources?

Some translation tools and resources include computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools, machine translation, bilingual and monolingual dictionaries, search engines and websites, parallel text aligners, and language usage forums.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• The video serves as an introduction to basic terms and concepts in the field of translation.

• It explains the difference between translation and interpreting, as well as the importance of being familiar with terminology specific to translation.

• The video covers topics such as source text, target text, genre, language functions, equivalence, translation approaches, translation units, translation procedures, and translation tools.