Production Of Target Text Research Articles

Charting the landscape of remote medical interpreting: an international survey of interpreters working in remote modalities in healthcare services

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the growth of remote interpreting, yet research on several aspects of remote medical interpreting (RMI) remains limited. Against this backdrop, this study reports key findings from a survey of professional healthcare interpreters with experience in RMI (N=47), addressing various gaps in RMI research, including interlocutor distribution and technology use, factors affecting interpreters' perceived impact of RMI on their performance, medical settings in which RMI is used, and working conditions. Results indicate that most interpreters have experience with both telephone interpreting (TI) and video interpreting (VI) in the healthcare context, encountering various medical settings, distribution patterns and technological configurations. Quantitative findings reveal four similar normative configurations of interlocutor distribution in both TI and VI, each with slightly different normative technologies. TI is perceived to have a more negative impact on overall performance than VI, which receives more positive evaluations regarding source text comprehension, target text production, rapport between interlocutors, concentration, stress, and fatigue. Qualitative results reveal common challenges shared by TI and VI, with COVID-19 exacerbating some of them. This study contributes to establishing a systematic understanding of the complexity of RMI across multiple dimensions and provides a nuanced perspective on both TI and VI.

Shared cognition in the translation process: Information processing and meaning production as interactive accomplishments

ABSTRACT This article complements the current understanding of cognitive processing in translation by discussing the concept and providing empirical evidence of socially shared, interactive cognition as it emerges in collaborative team translation processes. By analyzing face-to-face interaction between audio-describers, the article shows how cognition is distributed and shared between cognitive agents (in the sense of a tolerable shared interpretation), and how interaction is elementary of this translating system. The article reports on an interaction analysis of video data from authentic collaborative audio description processes. It intends to pave the way for the study of social interactions in translation and interpreting processes from the viewpoint of cognitive processing. The analysis describes different phases of the translation act, from source text analysis to target text production, and details cognition as information processing and meaning production, operations which extend from the personal level of a human being to the intersubjective and cultural-collective ones.

TRANSLATIONAL SELF-REPAIRS IN TRAINEE CONFERENCE INTERPRETERS: PRELIMINARY FINDINGS FROM A PILOT STUDY

This article investigates the phenomenon of self-repairs in simultaneous interpreting trainees, which has so far received only limited attention in interpreting research. Conference interpreters were long denied the ability to correct their performance (cf. Kade, 1968; Seleskovitch, 1968; Reiß & Vermeer, 1984). However, it was not until 1975 that Gerver described the importance of self-repairs as sufficient evidence of interpreters’ monitoring for both the source text perception and target text production. In this study, a qualitative method is used in the analysis of a corpus that comprises the interpreting performance of second-year MA students of English Studies at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. The pilot study entailed recording the students’ output of two distinct speeches (interpreted from English into Polish) and analysing the transcript thereof. The results prove that trainee interpreters repair not only defects sensu stricto, but also attend to their outputs for a number of reasons (cf. Petite, 2005). The article will demonstrate both a preliminary taxonomy of translational self-repairs identified in novice interpreters and put forward significant didactic implications for interpreter training. Keywords: simultaneous interpreting, monitoring, self-correction, self-repairs, interpreter training

What motor vehicles and translation machines have in common - a first step towards a translation automation taxonomy

ABSTRACT In professional translation and in society in general, translation is increasingly automated. However, in Translation Studies, we lack an updated taxonomy of translation automation (TA) to understand the evolving and dynamic relationship between humans and digital technologies. Therefore, taking a first step towards a new taxonomy of TA, this paper adapts the Society of Automotive Engineers' taxonomy of six levels of driving automation, ranging from no automation to fully automated driverless cars, to the field of translation. The six levels of the TA taxonomy basically describe whether the translator and/or the system translates by means of source-text analysis and target-text production and checks for and corrects errors and inadequacies; whether the translator or the system responds to system failures; and whether the performance of the system is limited to a certain domain. Adapting the taxonomy was a complex endeavor, and constructive criticism from stakeholders interested in TA would be welcome.

Las fenzhangpian de animación en China continental (1995-2012). Normas preliminares, operacionales y censura

En este artículo presentaremos el proceso que se siguió en China continental entre 1995 y 2012 para que una determinada película de animación extranjera pudiera ser proyectada en los cines de aquel país. Nos centraremos en unos criterios que pueden enmarcarse en el concepto de normas preliminares de Toury y de las reglas (rules) definidas en el sentido que les otorga este mismo autor. La propia definición jurídica del concepto de «película importada» revela criterios ideológicos. De esta forma, las películas realizadas en Hong Kong y Macao o Taiwán dejaron de ocupar cuota de películas importadas en los años 2003 y 2013 respectivamente. Al mismo tiempo, los filmes extranjeros que se exhiben en las salas comerciales deben seguir una normativa jurídica que regula el proceso de selección de dichas producciones, lo cual es una forma más de censura. Dentro de las películas extranjeras, la regulación favorece el visionado de las películas fenzhangpian (‘películas de taquilla compartida’) enfrente de las maiduanpian (‘películas compradas en su totalidad por las distribuidoras’). Además, se observa un predominio destacado de las producciones estadounidenses. Finalmente, las informaciones extratextuales que hemos recogido de profesionales en relación con la producción del texto meta nos permiten demostrar que las normas operacionales actúan como procesos de censura en la fase propia de traducción.

Philosophy and Practice in Translational Hermeneutics ed. by John Stanley etal.

Reviewed by: Philosophy and Practice in Translational Hermeneutics ed. by John Stanley etal. Mohammad Ali Kharmandar John Stanley, Brian O'Keeffe, Radegundis Stolze, Larisa Cercel (Eds.), Philosophy and Practice in Translational Hermeneutics Bucharest: Zeta Books. 2018, 400 pp. The second volume of translational hermeneutics (Übersetzungshermeneutik), including the papers selected in the 2013 symposium, indicates that this movement or emerging school of translation studies and human communication is effectively consolidating its foundations while initiating a dialogue with other disciplines; in this volume three major trends are visible: (a) translational hermeneutics is developing in a self-critical line as it questions its limits (e.g. the need for empirical considerations and framing practical methods); (b) the papers selected are the matically focused (divided into philosophical and practical sections) and tend to expand the territories of the studies; and (c) literature and culture are not the sole concerns in the practical approaches, while empirical/communicative contexts and cognitive science are now part of the issues explored. This volume consists of fourteen papers (in English and German) and an introduction. In the an introductory paper, John W. Stanley, Brian O'Keeffe, Radegundis Stolze, and Larisa Cercel report the current situation of translational hermeneutics, especially in the light of issues such as empiricism and methodology. The authors admit that the underpinnings of hermeneutics are abstract, but hope that the present publication can contribute to the practical problems of translation and communication. The authors finally divide the themes addressed in the volume into six major concerns: individual subjectivity and understanding, supra-individual frameworks, voice and phonetic phenomena, effective presentation of translation to the audience, the impact of understanding on target text production, [End Page 401] a pedagogical approach to translation, and phenomenological/hermeneutical research methods in translation studies (7–12). Brian O'Keeffe tries to situate translation in Gadamer's philosophy by associating poetry translation to reading, writing and memory. Exploring two relevant essays (Stimme und Sprache and Hören-Sehen-Lesen), O'Keeffe describes writing as a fixed imprint that might represent the poet's intention, while identifying reading with understanding. Reading is seen as a medium that transforms writing into a phonetic entity. This transformation is regulated by a hermeneutic mediation, which gives an independent existence to the poem. The meticulous consistency of poetic musicality (living voice), however, suggests that poets write for readers of the same mother tongue. Therefore, although reading and translation are partially similar, the purpose of the former is to generate an artistically acoustic phenomenon, whereas the latter is meant to overcome linguistic fragmentation (and normally fails to recreate the original) (15–45). As a rarely addressed but important concern in translational hermeneutics, terminology/specialized translation inspires George Heffernan to probe into the English translation of the phenomenological terms essence (Wesen) and eidetic (Eidos) with reference to Cairns's English translation. Heffernan unfolds several accounts of complexity/ambiguity in Husserl's language and argues that word choice can influence the way a philosophical discipline is perceived. The paper concludes that translation and understanding are mutually related, prior translations can serve as a guild-line, and over-determination (consistency) and under-determination (ingenuity) can decide a term in the face of various options (47–75). In a paper that elaborates on the principle of subjectivity in translational hermeneutics, Radegundis Stolze breaks the modes of translator subjectivity into three categories: cognitive, existential, individual. Following a critical history of Western interpretation theories, Stolze explains that the cognitive dimension involves structures of thinking, self-observation, and procedures that ensure consistency in the meanings perceived. The existential dimension situates the translator in a contextualized/intersubjective position framed by history, language, culture and society. The individual aspect includes personal emotive/affective responses, deconstructive reactions to traditions, and creativity (77–99). Critical of the limits of linguistics in translation theory, Lothar Černy explores the theoretically complicated link between semeiotics and hermeneutics in translation. This study relies on Schleiermacher's hermeneutics and Peirce's semiosis to constitute its theoretical foundations. Semiotic analysis is concerned with the structure of the signifying process (e.g. function, interaction and development of interpretants), whereas hermeneutics unfolds "interpretive response." As such Peirce's theory would focus on the evolutionary growth and lack the...

A expertise por interação como condicionante da competência do tradutor de textos técnicos e científicos

O presente artigo apresenta uma reflexão inicial sobre o papel da expertise por interação como componente necessário da competência do tradutor de textos técnicos e científicos. Mais especificamente, com base no modelo de expertise, preconizado por Collins e Evans (2007, 2010), e na noção de escrita mediante transformação do conhecimento, trazida por Scardamalia e Bereiter (1991), propõe-se que a interação entre tradutor e especialista em atividades de prática deliberada (ERICSSON; CHARNESS, 1997) fomenta processos tradutórios que levam à produção de textos de chegada adequados às expectativas das comunidades discursivas a que se destinam. Exemplos são apresentados para mostrar a pertinência da proposta e evidenciar que a expertise por interação é necessária para o sucesso da prática tradutória e para a elaboração de tarefas de prática deliberada voltadas à formação e à especialização de tradutores.

Short-Term Memory in the Production Phase of Sight Translation

This article reports on an empirical study on short-term memory in sight translation. The aim of the study was to test the hypothesis that sight translation requires the use of short-term memory during target-text production, as suggested by previous research. The hypothesis was tested on the basis of an experiment involving sight translation from Spanish into Danish and subsequent interviews with the translators. The data – the Spanish source text, seven sight translations into Danish, and the post-interviews – were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods, and the results of the study confirmed the hypothesis. In fact, the (quantitative) analyses of the sight-translated texts indicated that the subjects needed their short-term memory extensively during target-text production. However, the (qualitative) analyses of the interviews showed that the subjects had little awareness of this need.

Translating Mad Cow Disease: A Case Study of Subtitling for a Television News Magazine

This paper explores how discourse is reframed in audiovisual translation in a well-known South Korean television news magazine, PD Swuchep [PD Notebook]. The episode under consideration raised serious questions regarding the safety of US beef and the conduct of South Korean officials responsible for negotiating imported beef in the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement talks. The program, which contained sound bites of interviews in English subtitled in Korean, created uproar in the South Korean society and played a significant role in touching off many months of massive street rallies against the government for its alleged sloppy handling of the beef import negotiation talks. Based on the view that subtitling for television news is a practice of “entextualization,” the study argues that (1) different degrees of discursive transformations in the target text cumulatively work to support and exaggerate the risk of the transmission of mad cow disease as a result of eating American beef; and (2) the discursive transformation is reinforced by institutionally defined roles and procedures for target text production. The findings suggest that one of the main criteria for the selection of target text expressions may be the narrative relevance of the political slant of the translation to the story of the program. Furthermore, the narrative of the target text may not necessarily be consensually co-constructed by participants. On the contrary, it is often a product of conflict-ridden processes that are characterized by tensions and differences in power relationships among people in different roles in the media institution.

Gazing and Typing Activities during Translation: A Comparative Study of Translation Units of Professional and Student Translators

The paper investigates the notion of Translation Units (TUs) from a cognitive angle. A TU is defined as the translator’s focus of attention at a time. Since attention can be directed towards source text (ST) understanding and/or target text (TT) production, we analyze the activity data of the translators’ eye movements and keystrokes. We describe methods to detect patterns of keystrokes (production units) and patterns of gaze fixations on the source text (fixation units) and compare translation performance of student and professional translators. Based on 24 translations from English into Danish of a 160 word text we find major differences between students and professionals: Experienced professional translators are better able to divide their attention in parallel on ST reading (comprehension) and TT production, while students operate more in an alternating mode where they either read the ST or write the TT. In contrast to what is frequently expected, our data reveals that TUs are rather coarse units as compared to the notion of ‘translation atom,’ which coincide only partially with linguistic units.

Discursive Mediation in Translation: Representation of the Harry Wu topic in the Chinese translations of Living History

This paper describes how mediation in translation is realized by means of inclusion and exclusion of information at the selection stage and discursive deviations at the presentation stage in the process of target text production. It discusses the effect of mediation in relation to two types of the target text recipients, one is termed professional readers representing the censoring authorities and the other the intended reading public, and their respective socio-cultural backgrounds. Our argument in this paper is that an investigation of translation from the perspective of mediation helps reveal the power struggle underlying the translation process. The detailed description of the textual realization of mediation, in particular, helps create an awareness of the various ways the target text producer may take to mediate the translation process to achieve a compromise between the author’s interests and the professional readers’ political concerns so as to get the translation published.

The translation process - interplay between literal rendering and a search for sense

This research focuses on the type and proportion of the revisions made by translators during target text production. Eighteen professional translators used the keyboard logging software Translog while carrying out a translation task on a computer. As Translog registers and displays all keyboard activity in relation to time, all the revisions in the log files can also be identified and counted. The revisions were categorised as revisions of typing errors, revisions of literal translation and other revisions. Typing error revisions account for 51.5%, literal translation revisions for 20.5% and other revisions for 28.0%. If typing error revisions are ignored, literal translation revisions account for 42.3%. Revisions of literal translation were observed at all linguistic levels and in all translators’ log files, irrespective of the quality of their final translations. These results suggest that literal translation constitutes an integral element of the translation process and can perhaps be considered as a strategy to expand the translator’s working memory. The results also give support to the Monitor Model of translation, which maintains that literal rendering is the default strategy of target text production.

Brand Leadership at Stake

For the first time in more than a decade, France has been overtaken by Spain as British tourists’ preferred holiday destination (Sunday Telegraph, 13/4/03). The tourist brochure plays an important role in the promotion of a country and as such has become a key factor in an economic activity that generates significant income. There has been a deliberate effort by the Spanish tourist board, well documented by translation scholars, to maximize Spain’s attraction for other nationalities, with careful consideration of the appeal of their tourism materials so far as design, production and translation are concerned. Through a study of a comparable corpus of tourist brochures, this paper considers how the approach to target text production could be said to enhance or detract from the effectiveness of tourist brochures translated from French into English and whether their promotional function is being achieved.

Translation as adaptation and selection

This article discusses translation ‘as a translator's adaptation and selection activities in a translational eco‐environment ‘. Such an environment includes the worlds of the source text and the source and target languages, the linguistic, cultural, and social aspects of translating, as well as the author, client, and readers. Within a theoretical framework of translation as adaptation and selection, the process of translating is a production of target texts by ‘natural’ selection via the translator's adaptation to the eco‐environment and the translator's selection of both the degree of the adaptation and decisions about the form of the final target text in terms of the Darwinian principle of natural selection. This approach to translation highlights adaptation and selection as aspects of translational activities and hopefully adds new dimensions to Translation Studies as an academic discipline.

Translation and Stereotypes as Cultural Facts

The paper joins forces with the increasing literature on translation and cultural studies and places translation in the context of cross-cultural communication. It is my intention to analyse the factors that affect translation and the influence of stereotypical attitudes on the production of texts for a target culture (TC). Assuming that translations are facts of target cultures as Toury points out (1995), I will concentrate on a very specific topic: stereotypical attitudes towards Latino sexuality and its influence on the production of target texts (TTs). For this purpose, I will first introduce the topic of translation and culture; secondly, I will write about the use and functions of stereotypes in cross-cultural communication with specific reference to attitudes towards Latinos in the USA; and thirdly, I will make a case study of stereotypes on the translation and production of materials related to AIDS. In doing so, I will talk about the position and function of the translations as entities in the target culture (TC), the translating activity related to an ethnic minority within the American culture, and the form the translations have (the product). The article presents the analysis of informative brochures on AIDS originally produced in English and translated into Spanish for the Latino community in the USA.

Translation as textual (re)production

Abstract Translation has often been regarded as a predominantly reproductive skill. Following the emphasis on communicative aspects of translation, productive aspects have recently come more into focus ‐ to such an extent that translation is sometimes barely distinguishable from original text production. This shift has been welcomed by Reiss, who has always insisted on the need for a target text to be more than a passive reflection of a source text. Originally hypothesising that the source text determines what translation method must be used, Reiss in her later publications assumes no such correlation between source text type and translation method. However, she strongly opposes attempts to ‘dethrone’ the source text, claiming that it remains the yardstick for all measuring in translation. Against this background, the article argues that the extreme positions proclaiming either source or target text hegemony are both untenable. Target text production can neither be completely controlled by a source text, nor completely independent of it. As interlingual textual equivalents of existing texts, translations are characterised by always having a unique or privileged intertextual relationship with another text in another language. While always dependent, they also have a life of their own.