Choice Of Translation Strategy Research Articles

Explicitation and Implicitation in Arabic- English Translation of Institutional Academic Correspondence

Within the context of university communication, the choice of translation strategies can significantly impact the clarity and effectiveness of academic correspondence. This study investigates the role of explicitation and implicitation in translating from English (source language) to Arabic (target language). We explore how these strategies manifest in institutional academic correspondence (circulars and memos) and determine which strategy is more prevalent. Skopos Theory serves as the theoretical framework for this research. The study analyzed a corpus of 196 academic documents issued by the University of Sharjah between 2014 and 2020. An extended version of Klaudy's (2009) classification model was employed to identify instances of explicitation and implicitation across various linguistic levels (syntactic, semantic, stylistic, textual, and pragmatic). Our findings reveal a preference for implicitation in the English source texts compared to the Arabic translations. Furthermore, the analysis identified diverse manifestations of both strategies across different linguistic levels. The study concludes that explicitation and implicitation are both utilized in academic correspondence translation, but with varying frequencies.

A Comparison of Two Chinese Versions of Red Star Over China from the Perspective of Skopos Theory

Functionalist Skopos theory holds that the purpose of translation determines the translator’s choice of translation strategies. This theory is widely adopted in translation studies, and it also has instructive significance for the comparative study on different translations of same original text. In Red Star Over China, Edgar Snow described his experiences in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region in the first-person perspective. Chinese scholars have carried out thorough researches on the Chinese translations of Red Star Over China, but they have not paid enough attention to the different translation strategies adopted in different Chinese versions. From the perspective of Skopos theory, this paper studies the differences in translation strategies between Dong Leshan’s version and Wang Tao’s version of Red Star Over China. Dong’s translation applies literal translation for the purpose of faithfulness to the original text, while Wang’s translation is more inclined to liberal translation. Both versions bear some weak points in coherence, fidelity, and over-domestication, which need to be improved in future translations.

The Application of Domestication and Foreignization Strategies in Translation of Tourism Texts

With the implementation of China’s reform and opening-up policy and economic development, the tourism industry has also grown rapidly, attracting an increasing number of foreign tourists to choose China as their travel destination. To better promote and introduce scenic spots, the English translation of tourist attractions is crucial. The choice of translation strategy has become a focal point and core in the translation work of tourist texts. Newmark’s text function theory provides theoretical guidance for the application of domestication and foreignization translation strategies in translating tourist texts. Therefore, the translation of tourist texts demands not only accurate conveyance of the original information but also linguistic simplicity. Tourist texts belong to the typical “vocative” functional category, primarily aiming to convey information and induce action. Simultaneously, they contain a wealth of highly distinctive cultural information. Therefore, the translation of tourist texts should accurately convey the original information while maintaining linguistic simplicity and accessibility. This requires translators, during the translation process, to integrate the different functions and communicative purposes of the text, considering the audience’s receptiveness and determining the application of domestication and foreignization translation methods based on practical considerations. This paper, based on the two translation strategies of domestication and foreignization, combines the Wudalianchi Global Geopark Text for Outdoor Interpretation Panels and Outdoor Discovery Land for Popularization of Science as an example to explore how to apply domestication and foreignization strategies in the translation of tourist texts, aiming for better communication effectiveness.

Activity versus Descriptivity: A Stylometric Analysis of Two English Translations of Hongloumeng

This study examined the translation style of David Hawkes and the Yangs (Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang) in their English translations of Hongloumeng, a Chinese Great Classic, by considering the hybrid register nature of fiction. The activity index, a measure from quanti-tative linguistics that calculates the ratio of verb occurrences to the sum of verb and adjec-tive occurrences, was used to analyze the active-descriptive equilibrium patterns across the two Hongloumeng translations and the two sub-registers of fiction. Our analysis is based on a corpus that separates fictional narration and dialogues from the first 80 chapters of the two Hongloumeng translations. The study found that, overall, dialogues tend to be more active than narration and Hawkes’ translation was characterized by a greater level of activity com-pared to the Yangs’ version. Subsequent analysis revealed that Hawkes' translation dis-played a higher level of activity in fictional dialogues while demonstrating a more descrip-tive approach in fictional narration. The results suggest that Hawkes’ translation adheres more closely to the typical stylistic conventions of fiction writing in English. The stylistic differences between the two translations of Hongloumeng are believed to be a result of a combination of factors, including the translators’ language and cultural backgrounds and their choice of translation strategies and approaches, which may have contributed to the var-iations in the final translated products.

Genre and Translation Style in Chinese Translation of Hollywood Blockbuster Movie Titles in Mainland China and Hong Kong

The title of a movie is the first to attract the audience's attention. Poorly translated movie titles may result in a “low box office”, as translators in different countries have their styles and preferences in translating film titles, which might eventually result in different translations of the same movie title and cause confusion to the audience. This qualitative research used exploratory induction to investigate the influence of genre and translation style on the Chinese translation of Hollywood blockbuster movie titles in Mainland China and Hong Kong. Titles of 300 Chinese movies produced between 2001 and 2020 were purposefully selected from the top 50 Hollywood movies in the adventure, horror, and action genres. Genre was found to be slightly effective in the choice of translation style and strategies. Among the three genres, horror was found to have the greatest influence on the choice of translation strategy. It was concluded that translators from Mainland China were more conservative in title translation compared to translators from Hong Kong, whose attempt was to create innovative translations. The findings may have some theoretical and practical implications for film translators, book translators, advertising translators, translation trainers, and trainees.

On the Rendering of Intertextuality in Chinese-to-English Literary Translation: A Case Study on the English Translation of Renmian Taohua

Canaan Morse's translation of the novella Renmian Taohua, rendered as Peach Blossom Paradise, was the first translation of Chinese literature shortlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature. This paper takes a descriptive approach to examine Morse's translation strategies and methods of rendering the intertextual representations of the source text with the aid of the analytical model proposed by Charles Bazerman. Through close reading, analysis, and comparison, this study indicates that struggling with the inherent tension between foreignization and domestication, Morse used two types of translation methods: retaining the intertextual representations of the source text; intertextually connecting the target text with target language texts or previous English translations of Chinese literature. Whichever method is chosen, the target text is always faithful to the source text at the semantic or functional level. The choice of translation strategies and methods were influenced by both individual and sociocultural factors including the translator's view on literary translation, the marginal position held by Chinese literature within the Western literary systems, and the unbalanced exchanges between China and the West.

THE PROBLEMS OF VIDEO GAMES TRANSLATION INTO THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE

The study outlines a number of problems faced by the translator when translating video games from the English language into the Ukrainian language. The demand for entertainment software is growing, and at the same time, it is encouraging video game creators to translate more of their products. However, in order to achieve a high level of popularization, the nature of multimedia interactive entertainment software products requires special translation, i.e. localization. Localization of video games is a complex process that is not sufficiently researched to date. The article attempts to determine the nature of the difficulties faced by the translator, such as the choice of translation strategies, the translation of cultural realities, the translation of the comic, and others. Attention is focused on the fact that semantic errors are often made during localization, which in their turn are divided into gross distortion of the original content, inaccuracy and ambiguity, and linguistic errors, among which lexical, grammatical, stylistic, spelling and punctuation errors can be singled out. We conclude that in order to achieve the adequacy of the translation, it is necessary to apply skillfully a number of translation transformations, namely transliteration, transcription, loaning (when translating proper names, names of objects, phenomena, events, localities), as well as search for effective approaches to the adaptation of various cultural aspects and historical features, during which transcreation (creative translation) turns out to be apt.

HISTORY OF TRANSLATION. THE WAY TO INTERDISCIPLINARY STRATEGIES

Development of different translation strategies in historical aspect is considered. In the beginning interpreters practiced two strategies – word for word translation and free translation. With the growth of culture and science, a new type of texts that contain connotative and extralinguistic information appear. So, yet the Renaissance translators are in favor of translation, which not only faithfully reproduces the content of the original, but does not violate the norms of the target language. The ancient Roman tradition of cultural adaptation is returning. The choice of translation model was made mainly in view of the genre of the source text. With the development of the humanities, a number of linguistic, psychological and social factors gain an additional influence on the choice of translation strategies. The purpose of the study is to determine the nature and intensity of such effects. The first half of the twentieth century presents the burst of linguistics, which, in turn, gives a new impetus to the development of translation studies. The scholars research not just the text, but the more complex concept of discourse. Accordingly, not just language, but communication in general became the object of translation studies and translation methods gradually shift towards domestication model. Pragmatic strategies are trying to look into the so-called “black box” of translation, that is, to analyze not only the result but also the process of translation itself. The dynamics of the translation process shows a certain departure from the traditional linguistic translation and the increasing involvement in the field of culturology and pragmatics. Thus, for modern communication theory, translation is an understanding of the phenomenon of who translates and for whom, so the focus transfers from the text to the addressee.

Ragtime with Jazz Variations: A Novel by E. L. Doctorow Translated by Vasily Aksenov

The study focuses on the translation of Edgar Lowrence Doctorow's novel “Ragtime” (1975), made by Vassily Aksenov for the journal “Foreign Literature” and published in 1978. The article examines Aksenov's translation from different sides: both from the comparative point of view (the choice of translation strategies; linguistic, stylistic and semantic transformations of the original text) and from the evolutionary point of view (the influence of the American novel on Aksenov's works of the mid-1970s, mainly, on the novel “Burn”). A common place in the reception of the Russian translation of “Ragtime” was the discussion of the stylistic inaccuracies of Aksenov, who did not want to be “invisible”, as required by translation ethics (according to Lawrence Venuti). The study analyzes the language and style of translation and finds out how a Russian writer transforms the source text. Aksenov modifies the factual and moderate narrative manner of Doctorow’s novel, complements it with internal monologues of the characters and intensifies the subjectivity of the historical novel the American writer's intended. The translator combines both domestication and foreignization. Friedrich Schleiermacher, who first introduced these terms into academic field, considered it mutually exclusive. Aksenov uses domestication (adaptation of unfamiliar phenomena of foreign culture for the target reader) only if necessary (for instance, to explain the difference in Celsius and Fahrenheit temperature scales) or for censorship reasons (to replace “inconvenient” words like “sexologist”). Foreignization becomes the main strategy: there are plenty of Americanisms and intentionally “untranslated” words (“derby”, “darling”). The translation of “Ragtime” essentially impacted Aksyonov’s opus magnum – “Burn”. Like ragtime for Doctorow, Aksenov considers the musical form as the basis of novel’s composition: jazz happens to be a key metaphor for both the spirit of the era and the painful nostalgia for it.

Variation in Translation of Ossetian Sacral Onyms by Means of the Russian and English Languages

One of the most important tasks facing the translator is adequacy of the translation. The relevance and topicality of the present study is due to the need of: 1) developing a unified approach to the choice of translation strategies and methods of transferring ethnospecifically coloured sacral onyms by means of the Russian and English languages; 2) describing and analyzing the methods of interptetation of Ossetian precedent sacral onyms. The subject of the research is presented by the semantic, structural and functional characteristics of sacral onyms, as well as extra-linguistic factors of interlingual communication that influence the choice of translation correspondences by means of the target languages. The sources of the illustrative material of the study are presented by text fragments taken from Internet resources and reflecting the representativeness of the analyzed precedent onyms in social communication. The methodological basis of the research is the synchronous principle of linguistic description, which contributes to identifying the peculiarities of the formation of translation correspondences in the context of modern ideas about the strategies of translation of the onymic segment of vocabulary. The complex nature of the research has led to the use of a diverse set of research methods (the method of description, classification and systematization of linguistic material according to certain criteria for processing research materials; comparative analysis of the correspondent texts in different languages; component analysis).The results of the research consist in the systematization of the methods of finding translation correspondences, in order to determine the algorithm for solving the problems facing the translator.

Research on the English Version of The Last Quarter of the Moon from the Perspective of Reception Aesthetics

Based on the theory of reception aesthetics and through the study on the English translation of The Last Quarter of the Moon, this paper will analyze The Last Quarter of the Moon translated by Bruce Humes from three aspects, choice of object, the translator and the choice of translation strategies. Then summing up experience and lessons in order to learn effective methods to improve the translation effects, pointing out the effect that the reception aesthetics to the research of translation, and promote the readers to accept translations so that effectively disseminating culture.

(Sub)cultural specificity of fiction simile and the choice of translation strategy

Abstract In this paper, we combine methodological tools of cognitive linguistics and translation studies to establish correlations between translation procedures applied to render English fiction similes into Ukrainian, and the (sub)cultural specificity of the conceptual mappings that license linguistic expression of the similes and prompt translators’ decisions in favour of foreignization or domestication. We revealed five translation procedures (retention, replacement, reduction, omission, and addition) that contribute to foreignization or domestication (complete compulsory or complete optional, and partial compulsory or partial optional). Foreignization presupposes retention of a source-text simile based on a (sub)culture-specific conceptual mapping. Complete compulsory domestication entails replacement, reduction or omission of such a simile. Partial compulsory domestication involves retention of a (sub)culture-specific simile with implicit or explicit explanation of its sense. Complete optional domestication realizes as replacement, reduction or omission of a source-text simile that does not bear any (sub)cultural specificity as well as addition of a simile in the target text to translate a source-text utterance containing no simile. Partial optional domestication implies combining retention of a simile bearing no (sub)cultural specificity with implicit or explicit explanation of its sense.

The Choice of Translation Strategy in the 21th Century — Based on Comparison of Two Translation Versions of Lun Yu

From the Ming and Qing Dynasty onward, Lun Yu has been rendered into virtually all the main languages in the world. Of all English versions of the book, this paper will focus on Ku Hungming’s version and Legge’s version and seek to analyze how can we better coordinate foreignization and domestication to boost the diffusion of the Chinese culture across the world. It is commonly recognized that the two English versions mentioned above are excellent and classical versions of Lun Yu. Yet they adopted totally different translation strategies: Ku Hungming’s version tends to employ the strategy of foreignization while Legge’s version the strategy of domestication. After delving into the pros and cons of the two versions and bearing in mind China’s changing position in the global arena, this paper calls for adjustment of translation strategy so as to help the rest of the world better understand the genuine Chinese culture and increase the recognition of it.

Traductology, linguistics, and culture: the contrastive function of omissions in English-Chinese translations of the intercultural collision in Little Red Riding Hood

The study examines omissions in the English version of Little Red Riding Hood in contrast to the Chinese one. The research is aimed at studying the linguistic effects of inculturation and the choice of translation strategies to convey a truthful intercultural component. The study examines the Little Red Riding Hood story by Leray (2011) translated into Englishand Chinese languages. The Chinese version of the story was edited and published by Green and Green (1953). The analysis of the translation in a cultural context is based on the omission strategy. The analysis of semantically redundant words and sentences in the English version of Little Red Riding Hood has been carried out in contrast to the Chinese one, where no omissions were found. The purpose of the study is to analyze the relationship between the versions of Little Red Riding Hood and the evolution of European and Chinese moral ideology. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that two translations are considered in the context of the Tehrani’s (2013) method using a phylogenetic approach and the strategy of omission to determine moral codes. As a result of a comparative analysis of the target translation, ten omissions were found: four brief descriptions and six complete omissions. The omission strategy reflected the cross-cultural and informative ideological features of the two cultures. Adhering to the phylogenetic concept by Tehrani, the target language of Little Red Riding Hood was identified as English because the Chinese version of the story was translated from English (Zhengzhong Bookstore, 1967). There are also some distinguishing characteristics of the initial collision: the characteristics of the protagonist, the characteristics of the villain, the methods of deceiving the future victim by the villain and the ending options. The folk European collision of the fairy tale originates from the story The Wolf and the Children. It is also found in Chinese culture—The Girl and the Tiger; however, it is described at the level of other concepts, which confirms the genetic relationship of intercultural conflict. The nature of the extended Chinese translation testifies to the flexible structure and aesthetics of the style, in which traditions and family values play an important role, while in the English version some elements of culture are omitted due to a different mentality and structure of the language. Chinese culture is characterized by respect for elders, a tribute to traditions, and respect for people who are higher in social status. Undoubtedly, greetings in the English language carry a similar semantic load, but due to the peculiarity of its grammatical structure, omitting or transferring a greeting during translation does not harm the context of communication. Thus, it has been revealed that folk tales are a joint imprint of different cultures. The linguistic progression makes them change and adopt new information in accordance with the mentality of the people. There are three clusters of autonomous versions of the fairy tale: far Eastern, African and European; all of them are based on one common ancestor that has not been yet identified.

How Three Different Translators of The Holy Qur’an Render Anthroponyms from Arabic into English

The present paper examines anthroponyms in the Holy Qur'an in three different English translations to shed light on how procedures used by translators can help target-language (TL) readers understand the implied meaning of anthroponyms. In order to conduct the research, the anthroponyms in the Holy Qur'an were isolated and English equivalents were identified. Then Vermes’s (2003) model was applied to the collected data to find answers to the following research questions: (1) What strategies are used most frequently by the translators examined to render the Qur’anic anthroponyms into the target-language (TL)?; (2) How consistent are the translators in using particular strategies when translating the anthroponyms?; (3) Does the type of translator affect their choice of translation strategy?; (4) Does the model suggested by Vermes (2003) cover all of the strategies employed by the three translators?; and (5) Which procedures are source-language-oriented, TL-oriented, or deep-reader oriented? Overall, the findings indicated that the procedures most frequently used by the translators were “substitution” and “transference.” It was found that the native speaker of neither Arabic nor English foreignized 96.80% of the Qur’anic anthroponyms by using “transference,” while the native translators of either the target-language or the source-language domesticated 71.00% of the anthroponyms by using “substitution.” “Substitution” was used when an exact Biblical equivalent for the Qur’anic anthroponym existed. Otherwise, “transference” was used along with notes to transport the meaning and form while remaining faithful to the intended meaning of the sacred text.

Когнітивний стиль перекладача: «модернізація» vs. «історизація» часово віддаленого першотвору (на матеріалі українських ретрансляцій трагедій у. Шекспіра)

The article focuses on the cognitive style characteristics of Ukrainian poets-translators of Shakespeare's tragedies, formed in the XIX-XXI centuries under the influence of cultural and historical context and literary style of the epoch. The analysis of Shakespeare's “ Hamlet ” (1899) and its three time-remote Ukrainian retranslations made by P. Kulish (1899), L. Hrebinka (1939) and Yu. Andrukhovych (2000), revealed the influence of the translator's cognitive style on his choice of translation strategy – historicization / archaization (focus on the author of the original work, i.e. preservation of the culturally motivated mental image of the original in the translation) or modernization / domestication (orientation on the modern reader of the translation, i.e. adaptation of the original mental image to the cultural norms of the target audience). The goal of the research is to demonstrate the dependence of the stylistic variability of different Ukrainian retranslations of time-remote original text on the translator's cognitive style, which determines his choice of translation strategy. The research methodology incorporates general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, observation and abstraction for substantiation the theoretical foundations ; linguistic-stylistic, componential and comparative analysis to compare, on the one hand, time-remote original text with different Ukrainian retranslations, and on the other hand, different Ukrainian retranslations with each other to identify specific features of individual translation style . Results of research. The socio-cultural context in which Shakespeare's tragedy “ Hamlet ” and its Ukrainian retranslations by P. Kulish, L. Hrebinka and Y. Andrukhovych were created, demonstrates fundamentally different historical epochs. On the one hand, there is the Elizabethan era in the history of Great Britain with its specific social stratification and hierarchy in society. On the other hand, three different cultural and historical periods in social development in Ukraine: 1) the last quarter of the ХІХ century (P. Kulish); 2) 1930s (L. Hrebinka); 3) the turn of the third millennium (Yu. Andrukhovych). Therefore , the cognitive style of the translators is determined by the historical, cultural context and literary style of the epoch. The study revealed differences in retranslations of the time-remote original text not only in style but also in their cognitive accuracy, as the choice of historicization / archaization or modernization / domestication translation strategy depends on the literary style of the epoch to which the translator belongs or aspires.

A Study on the Metaphor Translation Strategies in Selected Modern Chinese Essays 1 by Zhang Peiji from the Perspective of Conceptual Blending Theory

According to the analytical framework of the three basic network models in Conceptual Blending Theory, this thesis dynamically presents the metaphor translation process and the choice of translation strategies in Selected Modern Chinese Essays 1 translated by Zhang Peiji. The study finds out that in Mirror Network Model, Zhang usually adopts literal translation while preserving the metaphorical image since the original metaphor shares the same organizational framework in both source culture and target culture; when it comes to One-scope Network Model, a majority of metaphorical images are omitted to achieve better readability while still some others are preserved to spread Chinese culture and introduce more cognitive models to target readers. And in both ways, paraphrases are added to deepen target readers’ understanding of the source text; with regard to Two-scope Network Model, Zhang mainly adopts the translation strategy of replacement with metaphors that accord with the target language, which enables him to build a bridge between the cultures of the source language and the target language.

The Research on the Translation Strategies of the English Version of Mu Xin’s An Empty Room from the Perspective of Diaspora

The successful translation and reception of Chinese contemporary fictions, to a large extent, based on the choice of translation strategies taken by translators. This article takes the English version of Mu Xin’s An Empty Room as an example to analyze the translator Tong Ming’s translation strategies from the perspective of diaspora and how he can set up a diaspora translator model in the translation process by adhering to his four-dimensional translational standards which are difference, replacement, transplantation and art. Through a detailed comparison between the source and target text, the article aims to explore how the translator can achieve a culturally dynamic balance between domestication and foreignization strategies.

Strategies of Subtitling the Word Fuck in The Wolf of Wall Street Movie

To determine the appropriate strategy for the translation of the word fuck and its variants in audio visual translation is indeed problematic. On the one hand, the translator is required to maintain the beauty of the literary value as reflected in the dialogues, including the usage of offensive swear words; on the other hand, he is obliged to comply with the provisions stipulated in government regulation number 13 year 2014 concerning film censorship agency, especially paragraph 6 article 25 which forbids the usage of vulgar, offensive, racist words that have the potential to ignite public unrest. This research is intended to investigate the choice of translation strategy made by the translator. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative using data in the form of the word fuck and its variants with The Wolf of Wall Street movie as the data source. This study is also intended to compare the results of a similar study conducted by Hawel (2019) which is about the strategy of audiovisual translation from English to Arabic. The results showed that there are similarities in the frequency of the strategies used, namely omission and softening strategies, which reached 75% and 25% respectively in Hawel's research (2019), and omission and mollification strategies which reached 72.9% and 27.1% consecutively in this study. The word mollification in this research is similar to the word softening in Hawel's (2019).

A Study on the Translation of “Red Sorghum Family” from the Perspective of Three-Dimensional Transformation of Eco-Translatology

Red Sorghum Family is one of Mo Yan’s representative works and the first English translation of Mo Yan’s works by Howard Goldblatt. The ecological environment of translation restricts and influences the translator’s choice of translation strategies, methods and techniques in the process of translation. According to the eco-translatology, translation is a transformation from language dimension, culture dimension and communication dimension. This paper analyzes the three-dimensional transformation between the source language and the target language in the English version of Red Sorghum Family, and holds that a good translation must be the translator’s effective adaptation to the ecological environment including the source language, the source culture and the target language.