Translating from English Unit 3: Message Transfer

Discussion Questions:

1. How can the translator negatively affect the translation?

• Translator’s linguistic and translation skills
• Prior knowledge
• Bias: may have unconscious bias in three variables:
  • The subject matter
  • The source language
  • The target language

The translator can negatively affect the translation through conscious or unconscious biases about the subject matter, the source language, or the target language. The translator can negatively affect the translation if competence in either language is lacking, or if knowledge of the subject matter is lacking.

2. What are the three types of relationships between idea units?

The three types of relationships between idea units are

• Temporal: arrange the idea units into an appropriate time sequence such as driving directions, cooking directions and in languages that order time-based events in a structure differently than  does the source language.

• Spatial: allows for two different possibilities. “One is between objects such as a house and a tree, and the other is the spatial relationship between the viewer and other objects”, spatial relationships point out the importance of the text’s point of view, who is speaking, and where that speaker is in relation to the things being talked about. In ASL, it is important to establish the location of the objects and people referred to in the signing space.
  Visualization is an excellent tool in preserving spatial relationships and during transfer for interpreters of spoken and signed languages.

• Logical: refer to “cause and effect or condition and consequence”. Languages may differ in how they arrange cause and effect clauses.
  English: “If it is on sale, then I will buy it”
  
   

                       conditional

• ASL: “SUPPOSE COST REDUCE, I BUY”

3. What role does visualization play in transfer?

Visualization allows you to arrange objects and people in a created mental space. This mental space is like a picture of the situation being referred to. Having a mental picture can help create a clear translation. Visualization can be used even when the objects and people being referred to are not present. When they are present the translation must reflect the actual relationships between the objects and people.

4. Why does the translator need to be aware of logical relations within the source text?

During the transfer process the translator needs to be aware of the relationships between people, objects, and events so that these relationships are preserved in the target text. For example, the translator must realize that the relationship between the actors and objects and events in the following two sentences is the same, even though the structure of the sentence is different.

The book was returned to the library by John.

John returned the book to the library.

5. What are two approaches to transferring the meaning of idioms from the source language to the target language?

Two approaches to translating idioms are to find an idiom in the target language that is near to the meaning of the source language idiom, or to find a non-idiomatic way to express the meaning of the source language idiom in the target language.