THEORY AND PRACTICE OF TRANSLATION 1 COURSE 1.

Aim and scope The aim of this course is to provide view on the act of translation and interpretation, meant to be instrumental to those students who are involved in translation studies or who will practice translation work in future. It is also meant to provide useful information and data to those students who are also trained in interpretation skills (consecutive and simultaneous interpretation), in order to help them have a more lucid insight in what they are doing when they interpret a speech. It is not an exhaustive course, every part of it may be subject to further expansion and deep-going discussion, maybe in the years to come, on account of more acquired experience and research. Translation is viewed under a twofold aspect in the present course: as an end-product and as a theoretical approach to text analysis per se. The underlying aim of any translation is to ensure a transfer of meaning, therefore meaning is basic in assessing the correctness of a translated text. For such an assessment to take place, the assessor needs access to both the source and the target text. The translation critic assesses the pragmatic adequacy of the target text, the extend to which the translation meets the readerships requirements of understanding and communication. The practical part of the present course should be the most beneficial, as it is a starting point for any beginner or even senior practitioner of translation/interpretation work. Therefore, translational analysis will comprise three basic dimensions: (i) the theoretical instruments for translational analysis, which are indicative of the use of different methods and techniques of translation (making up the translational/theoretical core), such as: word-for-word translation, literal, faithful vs. semantic, free translation, deviations and adaptation. (ii) the discourse analysis of a translation is viewed as a product, as a finalized target text and will be focused on those instruments of analysis that define any text structure (textual core): authors intentionality, cohesion, coherence, appropriateness. Translation is also relevantly connected with the cultural

background where it is created, as the aim of any translation is to serve some target readership, bound to what we can call its target culture. Through translation the meaning is naturalized, it gets integrated into a new culture, through a new linguistic format, following its own rules of linguistic and social communication, (iii) the third dimension of translational analysis is the cognitive or conceptual dimension, by means of which a text (the created target text) comes to be understood by the recipients, in consonance with its source pair. (a certain message (meaningful in itself) is transferred into a target structure, in a form that is proper to the target language and cultural frame. 1.1. The modes of translation and interpretation Translation denotes two distinct activities: translation proper, in written form and translation in oral form, lately known as interpretation. Written translation also includes remakes, especially in the creation of commercials, the text of which is an adjustment in the TL (target language) of what is rendered in the SL (source language) about a certain product. Interpretation comprises different modes of oral transfer of meaning, such as liaising, consecutive with note-taking, as well as simultaneous and conference interpreting. Translation has to do with two basic types of discourse: Literary Non-literary (also called pragmatic texts.

The pragmatic texts are of an ESP-type (English for Special Purpose), their content is representative of different domains, such as technical, legal, medical, financial, economic, etc. (e.g. TV commercials : adapted or remade texts for trading purposes so as to meet the cultural and communicative expectations of the consumers). Interpretation has two modes of interpreting: consecutive and simultaneous. Consecutive interpretation is the rendition of a message originally uttered in a source language, by an interpreter, who is expected to convey the content of the

speaker in a target language, only when the speaker stopped speaking. Consecutive interpretation may be performed with or without notes by the interpreter. Simultaneous interpretation is a mode of rendering into a TL (target language) a spoken message uttered in a SL (source language) at the same time with the speaker. The audience receive the message by means of technical equipment (headphones / headsets). The interpreter stays in the booth, with headsets, receiving sound (complete flow of the speakers speech), and speaking into the microphone, for the message to be transmitted technically to the audience (in various languages). In recent years, there have been several forms of simultaneous interpretation: Media interpretation: television and film dubbing (through the intermediary of actors voices, interpreting the roles in a transcript, with sound synchronization and other special techniques); community interpreting: court interpreting, trials held at the European Court of Justice, the International Court of Justice, etc. reporting some speakers statement, on the TV, by simultaneous (remote) interpretation Teleconference and remote interpreting Conference interpretation

1.2 The musts of a professional translator/interpreter a. Both translators and interpreters must have good passive knowledge of their passive working languages (C, D, E). Professionals must be able to respond very rapidly to spoken language in conference interpreting. Literary translators must be able to find shades of meaning as expressed by subtle choices of words and expressions. b. A second common feature shared by translators and interpreters alike is that they must have a good command of their active working languages (B, BB). (BB = to be able and to do retour in two different languages which the interpreter speaks and

understands perfectly but which are different from his mother tongue; a C or a D language is the language that the interpreter is able to interpret from, but which is mastered to a lesser extent.). Technical translators are required to be able to write publishable texts, to have acquired professional writing skills besides being able to perform the transition from one language to the other. Likewise, conference interpreters are required to be able to make speeches at a linguistic level matching that of the personalities they are expected to interpret, be they diplomats, scientists, politicians, artists, intellectuals. That is the reason why translators and interpreters must have reasonably sufficient knowledge of the subjects of the texts or speeches they process. Cultural knowledge (or cultural background) is the sum total of ideas, political, historical, social, and economic of the communities who are the beneficiaries of a translation or an interpretation; this is the translator/interpreters hidden facet which serves as an input to his/her performance. Unless this kind of knowledge is complete, accurate and relevant, sooner or later a flaw may slip in the target language message and it will become visible enough for the listeners. Therefore, cultural knowledge (or cultural background) is crucial in any professionals training either in translating or in interpreting. c. Last but not least, translators and interpreters must know HOW TO translate/interpret, i.e. they have to master the conceptual framework and technical skills of interpreting and/or translating, a fact that involves comprehension of principles of fidelity and accuracy and of professional rules of conduct, both technical and human (as inscribed in the FIT Translators Charter, 1963) a certain propensity for knowledge acquisition (mental aptitudes), for language awareness, for decision-making, note-taking and for simultaneous interpreting. 1.3 Definition and scope of translation Translation is a communicative activity that, while it may presuppose the bilingual double competence, calls for additional competences. The translator must say the same thing in both languages. Therefore, translation is an intersection of situation, translator competence, source text and target text-to-be. Translation is not only a

linguistic process. Translation is not interpreted as a mere trans-coding process, as in linguistically oriented approaches, but as a cross-cultural event. It is not easy to pull a text from its natural (inborn) surroundings and recreate it in an alien linguistic and cultural setting. No matter how good a translation may be, it is still a recreation, therefore, an imitation of what the source writer chose to write about. Still, many translational theoreticians maintain that there is no unique or generally accepted definition of translation, that we can rather speak about an approximate definition of the domain, as translation is a common pursuit and most varieties of translation are accurate variations of transfer of the textual meaning from one language to another for a new, target readership. Translation must exclusively be defined in terms of equivalence at text and sentence level, both semantically and pragmatically. Equivalence is in fact the basic norm of translation, both as a process and as an end-product. 1.4. Historical overview Translation Theory found its origin in applied linguistics (discourse analysis, ESP studies and terminological studies) on the one hand. On the other hand the communicative approach to language teaching prompted a certain attitude to translated texts and to their critical interpretation. Translation Theory encompasses a coherent system of linguistic and cultural instruments jointly concurring to the realization of one goal: production of a text or discourse endowed with the same kind of power as the initial one. The basic principles of translation are accuracy and fidelity, in accordance with Article 4 of the Translators Charter adopted by UNESCO at Nairobi in 1976: Every translation shall be faithful and render exactly the idea and form of the original P. Newmark (1999) builds on a set of five translational principles, that he calls medial factors in translation: 1. The factual truth. 2. The logical truth. 3. The stylistic/aesthetic truth (graceful, elegant and balanced writing)

4. The moral truth, based on the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (secures the elimination of, or gloss on, sexist, racist, ageist, and other language of prejudice). 5. The convergence of languages. This entails the literal translation of a universal SL idiom that has not yet emerged in the TL, where appropriate. The translators task is to find in the TL the appropriate form to serve the function of the SL meaning. The appropriate form implies choice of best solution at the microlevel, that is syntactic, lexical and lexical-semantic choices in the TL. In the present course translation will be dealt with from two points of view: theoretical and practical, i.e. a) as a linguistic approach to the act of translation and b) as a learning and teaching process, whereby translation is viewed as a product to be judged upon and evaluated. 1.5. The constitutive principles of translation The basic constitutive principles of translation are: equivalence, fidelity/accuracy, adequacy/appropriateness, economy, and fluency. 1.5.1. The principle of EQUIVALENCE. A widely controversial notion, equivalence is most comprehensively defined and analysed by Mona Baker (1992), who considers that in the domain of translation, equivalence must be viewed at multiple levels: word level, above word level (collocations and idioms), grammar (on account of a diversity of grammatical categories that go across languages), text level, and pragmatic level. She separates textual equivalence from pragmatic equivalence, including cohesion within the former level and coherence within the latter. Both cohesion and coherence are textual standards, operating at the text level. Coherence reflects the holistic interpretation of a text, while cohesion is limited to each sentence level and to the logical connection among sentences. To comply with the principle of equivalence for a translator means to try and find some expression, sentence, and /or textual form in the target language able to be if not

identical at least as similar as possible to the lexical-semantic and syntactic format of the SL in the source text to be translated. More often than not what happens in the process of translation is lack of such equivalent forms. Some problems of nonequivalence that may be encountered in text translation, especially at word-level, are those related to culture-specific concepts. The SL word may express a concept which is totally unknown in the target culture. The concept in question may be abstract or concrete. An example quoted by Mona Baker is the very English concept which is rarely understood by people from other cultures. This is the Speaker (of the House of Commons) which has no equivalent in many other languages. It is difficult to translate this term, as its function is not accepted or internalized into the institutional system of other countries. The role of the Speaker in the House of Commons is that of an independent person who maintains authority and order in Parliament. Another source of non-equivalence is non-lexicalization of a concept in the TL; therefore, the concept exists, but there is no word for it, yet. Standard is such a word, which has been naturalized as such in many languages, Romanian included. At present Romanian is practically invaded by a host of concepts (e.g. acord standby, management financiar, audit), and the fastest strategy was to adopt the English words denoting such concepts (borrowings). Another common source of non-equivalence is lack of a certain hyponymic term in the TL: in English under house there is a variety of hyponyms which have no equivalent in many languages, suffice it to mention bungalow or cottage in this respect. Along the same line the Romanian foisor would be an interesting example of hyponymic (non-) equivalence. What has to be retained is that equivalence is the touchstone of any piece of translation and that it has been used in the English vocabulary (since the 16th century) with the meaning of similar significance. 1.5.2. The principle of FIDELITY / ADEQUACY The principle of fidelity is probably the most basic and widely discussed component of translation quality. Theoreticians have wondered whether translation can

be fully faithful while retaining the merits of the SL text. The most obvious problem with fidelity stems from the well-known fact that languages are not isomorphic, that is, there is no one-to-one correspondence between them as regards lexical elements (words, idioms) or linguistic structures associated with rules of grammar, stylistic rules, etc. and that, apparently, there my be similar structures with different uses and different connotations. Hence, the main drawback of machine translation lying in its technical inability to match conceptual terms with context of use appropriately or adequately enough. As it is known from the history of translation, translators shifted their attention from the translation of religious texts, which tended to impose word-for-word translation, to the translation of secular texts, which set the tone for the translation of meaning. These two types of translation were succeeded by free translation , which became widespread, in literature and poetry, during the 17th and 18th centuries the era of the belles infidels. In 19th century emerged a new type of translation, namely adequate translation, which seeks to preserve the unity of form and content, remaining faithful not only to the words, the meaning, or some abstract idea of beauty, but also to all aspects of the original text. Today we have machine translation programmes and professional schools for teaching of translation. In translation schools, students are trained to match words and linguistic constructions rather than to re-express or interpret messages. That is why in translation tests or translation workshops, students find it difficult to accept the idea that changing a construction or adding or deleting words or ultimately reformulating certain passages while translating does not amount to a breach of fidelity. They are very conservative in their decision-making. This is the essential source of internal tension for any translator, whether a novice or a professional. While translating, we are permanently subject to a deliberating effort of choosing the best solution, out of the target repository. Selection of words or phrases is always based on the norm of fidelity, of complying with the source text-primary information and connotations, therefore, fidelity or adequacy is SL oriented, while appropriateness is target oriented. The ideal situation would be if the translator succeeds to match both types of norms, while producing the target text: adequacy (fidelity) and appropriateness (to have effective and relevant force to its readership). 1.5.3. The principle of ECONOMY

The principle of economy is strictly related to the product of translation, that is the target text must not be longer than the source text. A pedagogical approach in training students to think economically would be to devise semantic exercises, where they have to rephrase certain elaborated passages into shorter versions in the same language, starting with their mother tongue, and gradually developing rephrasing and reformulating skills from one language to another. Be brief should be the constant rule to be applied in translation, but to be brief would not mean to be vague or to provide less information than is originally stated in the source language. The work of translation must make use of the most economical forms of expression. 1.5.4. The principle of FLUENCY / ACCURACY Fluency, like economy, is a constitutive principle that regards the target text. Fluency lies at the confluence of meaning and form, and a translation must meet both. In other words, the target text must be clear, brief and well-groomed. Fluency is a sine-qua-non requirement for a target text, not of the source text. Even if a source text lacks fluency, a translator is duty-bound to render it as fluently as possible. Therefore, a translation must be a reflection of the translators ability to think logically and communicate intelligibly. 1.5.5. The principle of RELEVANCE (equivalent effect) In terms of translation studies, we have to mention that relevance applies to any target text, as it touches upon the communicative effect intrinsic to the act of translation. No translation would be encouraged nowadays unless it were expected to have an impact on the intended target readership. To communicate is to claim an individuals attention; hence, to communicate is to imply that the information communicated is relevant. Therefore, in communication we pay attention only to that piece of information that seems relevant to us. The relevance of new information to an individual is to be assessed in terms of the improvements it brings to his representation of the world. Thus, the interaction between new and old information is meant to lead to some communicative

effect which is perceivable in some act of human improvement, whether at the individual or the collective level. From this point of view, a translation may have effects that are proper to its scope. As mentioned above, the mere existence of translation is dependent on some behavioural (cultural) or cognitive kind of effect among the target readership, therefore, such effect must be measured in terms of a different frame, the target communicative and linguistic frame of the target culture. Translational relevance is necessarily related to a context. That is why, when measuring up textual relevance in translation, we can call it equivalent effect.

COURSE 3

TRANSLATION AS A PROCESS AND PRODUCT: METHODOLOGICAL NOTES The regulative norms of translatability are developed into a reference frame for Text Linguistics (De Beaugrande & Dressler, 1982) and serve as essential procedural milestones in translated text analysis (TTA). These norms, or standards are the following: cohesion, coherence, informativity, acceptability, situationality, intertextuality, intentionality. Any piece of translation can be treated completely, that is both from top to bottom (from the ready-made text, i.e. the product towards the pragmatic elements that make it come into existence) and from bottom up (constitutive linguistic parts of the created text, i.e. paragraphs, sentences, structures and lexicon, semantic components on the one hand and translational strategies on the other). Therefore, a translated text copies the content structure and format of the original or of the source text (ST). It is a recreated product, the function of which must be that of communicating the same intention, meaning and information as the source. As a conclusion a text in a target language is the mirror of a source text, still it is not totally equal to the latter. Once created, a target text acquires an independent life in that its function can be retrieved from the internal mechanism of the target language, different from those of a source language. Hence, the complexity of the translated product. While the main goal of such a text is to serve the same function or functions as the source text, it can only do so if it is appropriately translated or recreated in terms of the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic rules of the source language. If these rules are not entirely obeyed, then inadequate, infelicitous phrases and whole fragments may fail to render a source message into an equivalent but independently structured message which should be equally relevant to the target culture. According to Anglo-Saxon theoreticians a target text may become independent, having its own life and function only when it is totally transparent, that is when the translator managed to make it invisible. Here is Venutis definition of the notion of invisibility, one of the most powerful properties of translated texts: A translated text is judged acceptable by most publishers, reviewers and readers when it reads fluently, when the absence of any linguistic or stylistic peculiarities makes it seem transparent, giving the appearance that it reflects the foreign writers personality or

appearance, in other words, that the translation is not in fact a translation, but the original The more fluent the translation, the more invisible the translator, and, presumably, the more invisible the writer or meaning of the foreign text. (L. Venuti, 1994:23). In dealing with translated text analysis, the researchers should obligatory take into account both source and target text, thus providing a parallel text analysis, which is the basis of any translation study. The first step is to present a theoretical basis from which translations can be read as translations, as texts with cultural, pragmatic and linguistic independence. The translators experience and personality, the social-psycho-linguistic factors come into play when researchers compare several translational versions of one sole source text. Even if the product is the same or comparable to one performed by a different translator, strategies as well as techniques are not strictly identical. This is due on the one hand to the diversity of linguistic expressions (the infinity of expressions), and on the other to the translators individual idiosyncrasies in choosing the target expressions meant to render his/her own interpretation of the source text. Still the binding element will always remain the source text, no matter how elusive its interpretation may be. From this point of view, the literary texts are the most liable to being interpreted differently when put into other languages, therefore, into other target language texts. As mentioned before, once these texts are created, they acquire a life of their own and they develop as such in a world that belongs to the target readers or receivers of the message, so new meanings or messages may be triggered from one sole translated text. One of the well-known theoreticians of translation, Anthony Pym, writes about the epistemological side of interpreting a text when translating it into another language (Pym, 1993). Text interpretation is an act of cultural, anthropological and linguistic decision. It is historically, socially and psychologically bound and as such, a text has multiple readings. Both foreign text and translation are derivative: both consist of diverse linguistic and cultural materials that neither the foreign writer nor the translator controls, and that in a certain way destabilize the work of signification, thus making it independent, with its own potential life. In this respect, the translated version of one text becomes all the more complex, bearing a mediated type of signification: one that desirably superposes that of the source language, but that

may trigger off new tinges of signification, proper to target readership. Therefore, the cultural and historical dimension cannot be ignored in translated text analysis. Translation studies focus on intercultural, interlingual mechanisms and products. The regulative norms of translation The regulative norms of translation are basically derived from Searles Speech Act theory (1969) and subsequently developed into a reference frame for Text Linguistics (De Beaugrande & Dressler, 1982). These norms, or standards are the following: 1. Cohesiveness (Cohesion) accounts for the texture quality of any text; the various components of the surface text are mutually and logically connected within a sequence of some kind. That is, in terms of lexis and grammar, the surface components depend upon each other in establishing and maintaining text continuity. Cohesiveness is currently marked through connectives at the lexical level (e.g. connectives with an additive or explanatory function: also, nevertheless, however, therefore, etc.), through the logical sequencing of ideas or facts in the story, description, or historical account, and, last but not least, through referential use of proper names, personal and demonstrative pronouns, tenses. 2. Coherence is a regulative norm which is closely connected to cohesiveness, still, it applies to the text in its entirety, or to the text world. The underlying concepts and relations between sentences and paragraphs, or between one paragraph and the rest of the text must also appear to the reader to be relevant and accessible or transparent in establishing and maintaining a constant sense. There is no doubt that understanding the factors that determine coherence in the SL text is an important factor in translation. The translators own mental model of the text guides him when he selects linguistic resources for his rendering of the TL text. The concept of coherence also makes it possible to develop a programme for translation criticism, as the maintenance of the norm of coherence could be established as a criterion for adequate translation. Coherence is crucial in complying with the principle of equivalence during translation, because, as a difference from the cohesive markers and cohesiveness as a fragmentary feature of a text, taken paragraph by paragraph, or

sentence by sentence, coherence is a global concept. Translation is not a simple matter of taking SL text relations and matching them with TL constructions. According to Neubert & Shreve (1992), coherence is not imported from the SL text; it is constructed de novo in the TL text using TL sense relations as a template. (op.cit.,:100). Re-establishing coherence is an example of how translation is a creative textual act. It cannot be a simple matter of matching, because it is not constructed on a one-to-one basis. 3. Informativity is an important standard of translational process that can be observed by the translators act of transferring the information units of SL text into TL text. In more general terms, a text is informative if it provides new knowledge which did not exist before. If a text tells us nothing new, its information content is low. Informativity in a translation process is a measure of the information a translation provides to a TL text reader about SL events, states, processes, objects, individuals, places and institutions. Therefore, translation opens an information channel between senders and receivers, but, in this particular case, the senders of information are author and translator, while the receivers are source and target-language readers. Translation plays an important function as a channel of communication and information: it alters and redistributes the orders of informativity of a text. Sometimes information transfer in a translation is blocked at the linguistic surface, because it may happen that lexical items do not have familiar equivalents in the TL, or they may exist, but they have different connotations. Some other times, information transfer through translation is practically impossible because of socio-cultural gaps. Even if a translator actually plays his mediating role of translating a highly informative text, the target readership may fail to perceive it as such or they may just not see the informative gist of it. 4. Acceptability concerns the text receivers attitude about the cohesive and coherent text. This attitude is responsive to such factors as text type, social or cultural settings, and the desirability of goals. Acceptability does not imply that the receiver believes the specific content of the text, but it does require that the target reader be able to identify and extract that content. Acceptability does not mean that the target community have the same response or attitude to the target text as the source

community - vis--vis the source text. The translators have to cope with the need to make their translation products acceptable to a readership that does not know the conventions that govern the source language text. Acceptability is a primary characteristic of texts. Target-oriented translations always modify the nature of the text in the interest of the target reader. 5. Situationality refers to the need for some translation to be done, to serve the interest and purpose of some target readership. The translator should have a grasp of the target readerships need for the information in the text. Many texts have a common situationality because of socio-political globalization, they share many common features across cultural boundaries. The translator should find a comparable situation to raise the target readerships interest in the new situation. The general strategy of the translator is to adjust the text to its new situation. Adjustment may involve a variety of translation procedures, including explanations, compression, restructuring and textual re-arrangement. Any modification made by the translator is motivated by the need to preserve the intentionality and functionality (situation and acceptability) of the text in the new target situation. 6. Intertextuality is the interaction between text and context. A text depends on a prior text, which is usually indicated by linguistic and/or non-linguistic means at any level of text organization. Intertextuality has to do with the socio-cultural objects that are expressed in a text. These must be identified, recognised and correspondingly rendered through equivalence or through direct translation from the source into the target language. Intertextuality goes beyond text structure, thus contributing to a larger concept of coherence to be fully observed when translating a given text. The two components to be taken into account in an analysis are: socio-cultural elements/objects; rhetorical/discourse markers, whether explicit or implicit. The translator should pay attention to the composition structure of a text. There will always be an intertextuality relationship between the title and the text, and the translator has to find a matching technique of rendering the same kind of intertextual relationship in the target product too. 7. Intentionality is a contextual criterion, by means of which the text producer arranges words, sentences, the whole sequences so as to serve his intended meaning.

Intentionality is recognizable in most of the previous objects of analysis: cohesiveness, reference, socio-cultural aspects. Moreover, it is built in the conventional forms of styles, genres, discourses and registers. Together, all these textual and intertextual elements form the pragmatics of the text under consideration and give out the authors intentionality and motivation of the use of language. The textual super-ordinate standards of translation Style is a composite notion involving use of a certain register in a constant and consistent way (e.g. a gypsys register would consist of a slang lexicon, with plenty of idiom chunks and cryptic phrases, of a jargon type, making up a certain style, typical of the gypsies language. Therefore, we have to admit that translation can prove to be a very tricky matter for several reasons. First, because style is largely unpredictable, second, because style is a very elusive phenomenon, undermining all efforts of systematic or consistent application of grammatical and pragmatic rules at text level. Thirdly, because style is definable either in terms of conformity with existing text norms (text type format, thematic progression, focalization etc), or in terms of individual idiosyncrasies deviating from the way we normally express ourselves in a given communicative situation. And last but not least, because it may be difficult (if ever possible) to find an adequate TL equivalent for a specific SL stylistic feature. No version of any translation can perfectly render the same argumentative tone of the source text. Genres reflect the way in which linguistic expression conventionally caters for a particular social occasion. Genres are conventionalised forms of texts which reflect the functions and goals involved in particular social occasions as well as the purposes of the text producers. From a socio-semiotic point of view, genres reflect a particular use of language encoded in certain norms or types. Thus, we can distinguish oral genres and written genres. We can distinguish literary, religious, philosophical, descriptive, or persuasive or prescriptive genres, but this classification is based on subject matter, in a way similar to text typology. The authors attitude towards the respective subject matter as well as his

communicative intention are also important in setting the typological criterion for text and genre classification. Discourses embody attitudinal expressions (e.g. Rom: ce mi-ai facut pe birou?, with a negative, reproachful meaning, as uttered by some mother to her naughty child) bearing a strong social imprint, for instance authoritative as addressed by some person of authority to a hierarchically inferior one, a.s.o. Registers are also called the semiotics of culture. They are the largest units of texts, which reflect several aspects at a time: set of ideas and meanings, intentionality, socio-cultural beliefs, arranged according to the authors linguistic and pragmatic competence); register and register membership reflects the text producers intentionality, his sense of belonging to a certain social group, to put it simply the way he/she views reality and the way the producer relates to this reality (ideology of the text). The register that a given source text belongs to is the semiotic dimension of the target text too, in the sense that the translator must construct the pragmatic frame of the target text within the same super-ordinate parameter. Registers are somewhat restrictive, in as far as they serve a communicative purpose, but we should not consider them to be structurally closed systems. At one end we have restricted registers such as the diplomatic protocol language, at the other end we have open-ended registers such as the language of journalism. In between, we may locate registers such as those of weather or news bulletins, insurance contracts, negotiations, etc. The type of registers is related to the type of situation they have to reflect. On the other hand, a register is also linked to the context of the situation, it is practically defined within the semiotic boundaries of a cultural context. The field and boundaries of context constitute another area of investigation in pragmatics, which will hopefully shed more light on related matters of translation studies too.

COURSE 4 TEXT CATEGORIZATIONS AND TEXT TYPOLOGY The non-literary texts have a relatively short format and their intentionality and degree of information are relatively easy to grasp by their readership. Their textual surfaces carry linguistic markers which result from the application of underlying procedural understanding. Individual texts can only be understood when they make sense in the context of a readers social relations. A reader is motivated to act or react to a situation-creating text as a result of the relevant and motivating information generated from the stored knowledge of the text. Thus, text types are socially institutionalized tools whose application has been learned as a form of specific social knowledge. A knowledge of text types is not acquired in addition to words and grammar but in conjunction to them. The use of linguistic elements in specific kinds of texts is an interplay of text and text type. Characteristic distributions of linguistic markers (or patterns of linguistic pattern) trigger textual knowledge frames, but the specific configuration of textual markers in a text type cannot be identified with a simple checklist of textual markers. For instance, use of the passive voice, zero article and simple present tense on the one hand, and frequent occurrence of conclusive logical markers such as thus, therefore, consequently, are typical of scientific, or technical texts, but the configuration of such markers may differ from one type of text to the other, the author feeling free to place his conclusive remarks at the beginning of some scientific argument and not obligatory at the end, especially if he chooses to be rhetorical or reactive to some scientific theory. Producing a text so that it will be recognized as an instance of a particular text type is not a simple matter of introducing, element, by element, all of the features required to mark it as a member of that type. Here are some examples of text type specific regularities: one form a narrative text, and one from the domain of advertising. If we read or hear the phrase: once upon a time a fost odata ca niciodata, we immediately become aware that what comes next is a fairy tale. If we come across a sentence like the following: It works smart. How it works. We design and make Glaser Travel Goods and sell direct to you, we infer from our knowledge of the commercial world that this is a passage from a product-selling text, as published in a newspaper/magazine. A specific set of text patterns can be found in argumentative or narrative texts which may proceed along the lines of any type of logical relations causal, conditional, concessive,

adversative, purposive, etc. Each logical relation is like a frame which contains slots, such as conjunctions, indicating the semantic perspective of the individual utterance. Text typology interferes with the notion of genre, in the sense that a text type is an extension of the authors linguistic perception about how to construct the texture of his ideas into some cognitive pattering, in a way similar to what genre purports to treat. An empirical/descriptive text, for instance, is one with necessarily factual reference, so it refers to materially concrete phenomena. Prescriptive or persuasive genres, on the other hand, aim at influencing readers to behave in textually prescribed ways. This aim can be pursued through various means: explicit and helpful instructions; statutory orders, rules and regulations; oblique (indirect) suggestions. Thus, we can classify in one category the entire gamut of texts from instruction manualas to propaganda leaflets, advertisements, and so on. Sub-categories are as many possibilities of classifying texts in terms of the authors communicative intention. Therefore, text-types are somewhat user- or reader-oriented, and a persistent identification of genre and type in translation studies may always prove instrumental to finding the right chord to strike, for the translator to produce a text as close to the original as possible. Matching and mapping process of translation The translation process works on the matching and mapping process, a deeply complex and perfect process of final rendition of a target text. This process consists of two sequential acts: comprehension of the source text and reformulation (including: rephrasing, paraphrasing, mere rewording, and/or restructuring) of the message into the target text. Within the comprehension level, the translator must discern the pattern of abstract relationships uniting the words of a sentence. The semantic, conceptual unit has a signifying value so that the context of occurrence for the items in the target text is easy to predict. Once the translator is sure of the meaning of a translation unit, he/she verbalizes it in the target language. The translator makes sure that the translated version complies with the fidelity requirement, that is, he/she checks that none of the information has been omitted or distorted in the translation and that no unwarranted information not contained in the source-language text has been inadequately and inappropriately added.

Within the reformulation level, the translator must check the text in terms of clarity, language correctness, stylistic appropriateness, and terminological usage. This process continues until the product is acceptable from all points of view, therefore, it is a recursive process, it goes back and forth, in a cycling manner. Comprehension and reformulation are face-to-face processes, evolving within the translators deliberating act. Translation strategies: methods and techniques Translation strategies seem to be a rather complex concept which refers to the authorial function of a text-to-be-translated: the semantic-propositional one and the attitudinal one. The former strategy leads to a literal target text, whereas the latter strategy is bound to produce a free, creative type of text which may be quite dissimilar from the source text. Translation is a three-phase operation: a source text decoding phase, a transfer phase (laboratory), and a target encoding phase, with the additional dimension of feedback or verification phase that may intervene at least twice during the process of translation, both before and after transfer. The whole interpretive process involved in the transfer process presupposes several processing stages, such as: rephrasing, paraphrasing (which is optional, in case there is no equivalent term in the target language) rewording and re-ordering of ideas. Restructuring is a more general method of structural re-arrangement of ideas according to the source text, while keeping the specific features of target text. Restructuring is particularly useful when the translator has to adapt target texts to the readerships requirements and/or expectations. It should be noted that translation methods relate to whole texts, while translation procedures and techniques are used for sentences and the smaller units of language. Literal translation, for instance, regards the parts out of a whole text, therefore, it is a procedure by means of which the target text follows closely the source text in terms of lexical and syntactic form, sometimes to the detriment of both source and target sense. Semantic translation, on the contrary, is focused on following the sense of the source text as faithfully as possible, while resorting to structures and lexical apparatus that are proper to the target language, thus being totally freed from the source pattern. P. Newmark (Newmark:45) defines the types of translation:

SL emphasis Word-for-word translation Literal translation Faithful translation Semantic translation

TL emphasis Adaptation Free translation Idiomatic translation Communicative translation

P. Newmark further defines the difference between the two basic types at the end of the two gradations as follows: Semantic translation is personal and individual, follows the thought processes of the author, tends to over-translate, pursues nuances of meaning, yet aims at concision in order to reproduce pragmatic impact. Communicative translation is social, concentrates on the message and the main force of the text, tends to be simple, clear and brief, and is always written in a neutral and resourceful style. A semantic translation is normally inferior to its original, as there is both cognitive and pragmatic loss (1988:47-48) Only these two methods mentioned by P. Newmark meet the two main aims (norms) of translation, accuracy and economy. A semantic translation is more likely to be an economical rather than a communicative translation, unless, for the latter, the text is poorly written (Newmark:47). Apart from the two main translation methods outlined above there are other minor varieties, of formal or pedagogical significance, such as: - information translation - cognitive translation - academic translation - service translation Paraphrasing and rephrasing two kindred techniques The essence of translation lies in the ability to put the same meaning in other words, that is to paraphrase, either within the same language or in between two languages. A paraphrase may be obtained at the phrase, sentence, or text level. When one whole paragraph or text is rendered differently, while still preserving the same meaning, we can call the product an adaptation, especially when, it is stylistically different from the original piece. An adaptation

may either be longer or shorter, depending on the purpose for which it was created. A paraphrase is also a polite means of referring, and it can equally be used by author and translator, with the obvious purpose of putting a different, socially more acceptable name to some object in the real world. When using paraphrases, the sender of the message must be sure that the significant words are part of the shared knowledge of writer (translator) and readership, otherwise there can rise ambiguities and misinterpretations as regards the referential scope of the text. Rephrasing regards a reformulation of the same idea, by means of a restructuring process, that is by means of syntactic equivalence. Still, there is no total equivalence between the expressions; rephrasing never allows a precise reproduction of the message content of the SL. Restructuring The technique and method of restructuring is applied at the stylistic level in the TL. After having transferred the message from the source language to the target language, it is essential that one consider the newly produced text from the perspective of the varieties of language or of styles which may be desirable, as well as from that of the components and characteristics of the target style. The translator, in order to avoid repetition or to reproduce a stylistic effect, or else, to compensate for a loss, has the possibility to reformulate or restructure the basic information and thus re-expresses the message in different linguistic form. In the technique of restructuring lies the translators relative creative freedom of reordering sense units in the target language. On the other hand, comparative stylistics short-circuits the interpretive process of translation, it is an instrument for observing how two linguistic systems function, but it is not a true method of translation. According to J. Delisle, style is like a uniform, frame imposed by the demands of communication, in which the translator clothes his text in order to make it comply with the rules of the genre or touch his readers emotions (Delisle: 100). Compensation By definition, compensation means recovery of lost information somewhere, during the process of rephrasing and reformulation of the meaning in the target text. Lack of one-to-one correspondence between grammatical categories, including tense systems, demonstratives and adverbs of time and place a.s.o. creates problems for the translator. To say nothing of the cultural or semantic contrasts. Compensation does not consist of one sole solution of recovering

information during translation. Individual translators may adjust the source text environment to the target text environment in different ways. They may decide on different methods, or different techniques, or even on different strategies of translation, but what seems to be common among translators is the ability to compensate for interlingual and intercultural differences. More often that not, lost information is of a lexical-conceptual nature, instead, compensation can be of different kinds: it can operate at the syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic level, depending on the specific features of the target language, and it can be applied at sentence level, or at paragraph level or even at text level. In the latter case, it constitutes a case of adaptation. Interference in translation: mismatching effect P. Newmark defines interference in translation as a defective production of a target text, where inappropriately a syntactic structure, a lexical item, an idiom, a metaphor, or word-order of the source text is carried over or literally translated into the target text. In a wider definition, interference includes cases when sentence length, punctuation, proper names, neologisms, or cultural words are evidently transferred in the translation. In a literary work interference may enrich the translation, may suddenly open up two senses both in the SL and the TL. The positive aspect of interference comes into play when the translator decides to introduce into the TL some specific universal, cultural, personal or linguistic values existing in the source text. An example of cultural interference would be the European English phrase denoting the EU representative law-making body, more precisely, the Council of Ministers. This should be translated freely as consiliu ministerial, into Romanian, in order to avoid past connotations linked to the excommunist phrase consiliu de ministry. In Romanian TV subtitling, there are plenty of errors of interference, either due to speed constraint or to ignorance and shallow knowledge of the world, or to both. Over-translation and Under-translation Over-translation is the translators common tendency of saying more than is necessary in order to render the source meaning of some phrase or sentence. Elaborate, long renditions of some ideas are examples of over-translation when the same thing can be expressed in shorter forms. Such translations give more detail than their corresponding SL unit. Explication is another form of over-translating, which occurs especially in expository texts, where the presentational

part of some technical device or working method is important for the target readership to understand and occasionally, have some response to it. Under-translation is the opposite type of error, where the translation gives less detail and is more general, more vague than the original. The degree of under-translation varies from one text type to another. For instance, a lexical case of under-translation is in connection with the Romanian equivalent for the concept of marketing. A marketing licence would mean autorizatie de comercializare/vinzare a unui produs, but comercializare or vinzare is mostly referring to the act of selling, not of first doing some promotional activities with a view to ultimately selling the product. Therefore, the Romanian equivalent says less while saying more, and this is the reason why economists prefer to borrow the term from English and use it as a calque (autorizatie de marketing) or to paraphrase, like punere pe piata. Transference Transference or transcoding is a translation procedure of moving along one or several SL words into the TL, for instance, a series of French words and phrases have been transferred into English: coup detat, detende, ambiance, rapprochement, etc. At present, there is a tendency of introducing English words or phrases into other languages, Romanian includes, e.g. accord stand-by, management [judiciar], baby-sitter, fair play, computer, hardware, HI-FI, etc. P. Newmark notes that in principle, the names of SL objects, inventions, devices, processes to be imported into the TL community should be creatively, preferably professionably translated, if they are neologisms, brand names have to be transferred as such. For instance, glasnost as well as perestroika were immediately exported into the Western European languages out of the political and linguistic reason of giving a genuine name to the newly developing openness of formerly closed societies. The translators role is to make people understand ideas, while showing respect for the SL countrys culture. Therefore, this argument stands in favour of using transfer, wherever this enriches target culture and readerships understanding. Calques Calquing may also be called a form of cultural borrowing, whereby only the model of SL grammatical structures is borrowed. For example, if ST cherchez la femme in a detective story is rendered in the TT as cherchez la femme, that is cultural borrowing proper, whereas TT look

for the woman would be calque. If calque is used as a translation device, there are some risks that the translator must be aware of, and among them the major one is that the meaning of a calqued phrase may not be clear in the TT. Calques can even be not recognizable for what they are and are merely puzzling to the reader. For instance, the English phrase institutional arrangements was erroneously calqued into aranjamente institutionale, which has a negative connotation, while the target meaning is cadru institutional. Those calques which are successful in a target language need no explanation and are accepted as such. In any text, one should also avoid unintentional calquing resulting from too close a simulation of the grammatical or lexical structures of the ST. Transposition and modulation methods The translators ultimate end is to be faithful to the original text, to all senses encoded in the SL. To comply for this goal, he/she will have to occasionally resort to shifts or changes in the grammar of SL to TL. For instance, when an SL grammatical structure does not exist in the TL, there will be a choice to be made for rendering the same meaning in a different structure: the English cleft sentences, introduced by anticipatory IT fail to be rendered in an equivalent format into Romanian: e.g. it is him who did it will have to be transposed as: el a facut asta, where the pronominal word is placed in a topic position, under stress, subject position being a place that otherwise is unmarked in Romanian. Another example of syntactic structure that lacks an equivalent into Romanian is the FOR+TO Infinitive construction, which is usually transposed as a subjunctive, e.g.: for her to do it = pentru ca ea sa faca asta The emphasis should be maintained, otherwise the whole message could be distorted. A complex sentence can be converted into a coordinate sentence, or two complex sentences: si lui est aimable, sa femme est arrogante he is very pleasant, but his wife is arrogant. He is a heavy drinker cannot be transposed otherwise than bea de stinge, or este un betiv inrait. Transposition is the only translation procedure concerned with grammar, and most translators make transpositions intuitively, in that they reorganize the information according to some adequate syntactic pattern in the TL. Restructuring is a somewhat ampler method by which several procedures of transposition are applied in translation.

Modulation is a super-ordinate term covering almost everything beyond literal translation; for instance, one negative (in fact, double negatives or the so-called negative polarity items) is translated through a positive construction: N-a ezitat nici o clipa He acted at once Nu e las deloc - He is extremely brave N-a inchis ochii deloc azi-noapte He stayed awake all night. Modulation practically consists of a paraphrasing technique, which occurs out of the impossibility of rendering a negative sentence into its strictly affirmative counterpart. Besides negative polarity items, there are other structures that lack one syntactic form or another, for instance active for passive constructions or vice versa are common cases of transpositions and modulations at a time, in languages that lack one of the forms. Modulation is valid intralinguistically too. Translation merely imports such procedures to its own province, by applying them across languages, while observing the principles of equivalence, adequacy, economy, fluency, and relevance. Modulation is the way towards free translation, and it is highly dependent on the translators power of SL interpretation. Through transposition and modulation, the target text may become more natural, in accordance with the target readerships expectations, based on the set of shared assumptions about the topic of the source-target text. finally, the target text becomes completely domesticated into the target language and culture.

COURSE 5 CULTURAL CONTEXT AND TRANSLATION Motto: Culture is the way of life and its manifestation that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression (P. Newmark, 1995:94-95). Starting from P. Newmarks definition of culture, we have to note that cultural has to be distinguished from universal and personal or highly individualized language. The universals of language refer to universally valid objects of human activity (e.g. live, star, die, eat, or human artifacts such as table, mirror, car, etc.), for which, as a rule, there are no translation problems, whereas cravat, mangafa, spaga, mozzarella, tortilla are examples of cultural words which usually pose problems of translation or of mere transference from one (SL) to another (TL). Universal words are universal because they cover universal functions, but not the cultural description of the referent. For instance, breakfast is a universal word , but there are specifications as to the content of the first meal of the day, related to the place where it is served (continental breakfast usually refers to European breakfast, although it is perfectly the same in New York or in Tokyo). But if someone speaks in a very personal way, by making individual choices of words in relation to different objects or concepts, of if the speaker (writer) conveys the message in a personal, distinctive way, there will always be a translation problem. Frequently, where there is a cultural focus, there is a translation problem due to the cultural gap or distance between source and target languages (see P. Newmark, 1995:94). When running into translation problems related to cultural context, we have to make a distinction between what has been defined as macro- and microcontext. A microcontext contains singular (episodic) phenomena, above all, in literary texts, but not always there, such as semantic vagueness, syntactic complexity, central vs. peripheral information, metaphorical expressions, ironic text elements, culture-bound lexical items, etc. In such cases, translation problems are often of a stylistic nature. Decision-making as part of the translational strategy is essential, with the prerequisite that the translator should be conversant in the source and target repository to a fairly equal extent. For macrocontextual decision-making, the translator needs a strategy that is oriented towards

the totality of the ST, in other words, he must have a clear idea of what the content of the ST implies, what its intentionality is and what readership the TT is intended for. According to some translational criticists (Wilss, Vermeer), domain-specific texts, technical, commercial, institutional etc. raise fewer problems from the macrocontextual point of view. Translational criticism evaluation procedures Translation is a three-phase operation: a source text decoding phase, a transfer phase (or laboratory), and a target encoding phase, with the additional dimension of feedback or verification phase that may intervene (at least) twice during the process of translation, both before and after transfer. The transcoding process of translation can be represented along a transitivity axis, as follows: Source text I. Decoding Phase II. Transfer Phase - Target text (laboratory) (verification step 1) III. Encoding (verification step 2) final check-up As mentioned above, within the transitivity axis of translation, verification as well as the overall target text evaluation is the last stage that finally confirms the correctness of the translational process. Evaluation of a TT will always imply a comparative perspective, from ST-to-TT, with a view to identifying those lexical, syntactic, or semantic errors that distort the overall meaning of a sentence, a paragraph, or a larger piece of text. The whole unit of text may be affected by some discrepancy in meaning of form, but comparison starts from contrastive elements, that is from cross-language categories, such as phrasal, idiomatic, or sentential level, even if the immediate as well as the wider (macro-) context is always taken into consideration. Consequently, in the act of comparing the translation with the original, the criticist, who may be the translator himself, must consider how the translator has solved the particular problems of the SL text. The constitutive units of comparison are the title, the paraphrasing and sentence

connectives, the thematic shifts and thematic progression, rendition of metaphors, cultural words, proper names, neologisms, alliterations. Procedural notes Translation work presupposes pursuit of several steps, whether explicit of implicit, to be taken by the translator. Even professional translators with year-long experience tend to go through the same sequential process when they have to perform a ready-made translation from a SL into their mother tongue or vice versa. 1. A first step is reading through the respective article (text). The translator reads the text for: Information Capturing the exact overall meaning of the text Having an idea about the potential traps or difficulties of rendering the text into a different language (TL), for a different readership. The translator is the assessor of the text type, being able to say whether the text is or is not difficult, or whether it is well or badly written. 2. A second step meant to mediate translation proper consists of making up a kind of glossary of specific terms or phrases, which are essential both for the comprehension and rendition of the text into target language. The glossary may be both mono- and bilingual, as it is a kind of working instrument for the translator, meant to help him/her use the most appropriate expressions/collocations as equivalents of the SL phrases or terms. In making up this glossary, the translator uses all dictionaries at hand and resorts to his/her own knowledge of the world as well as to any source of reliable information. Solutions to various forms or expressions may be written down in this glossary. It is a laboratory instrument for easing up further study or expertise in translation. This is the second step in translation work, which is optional, depending on the translators habits in approaching a text. 3. The third step consists of an analysis, specifically called discourse analysis, in which even if not in explicit terms, the translator notes the linguistic and non-linguistic means used by the author of the ST in the creation of the product. This is a top-down as well as a bottom-up analysis, where every element in the composition and structure of the

text is weighed, justified, assessed and transposed into the TL. Every element refer to those linguistic units (lexical items, phrases, sentences, idiomatic expressions, stylistic devices, such as metaphors, inversion, focalization, restructuring, etc.) that have an impact on translation. 4. The fourth step is the translation proper. 5. The fifth step consists of the translators rereading the target text, as if it had been written straight into the target language, with no source support text. This reading is focused on the textual naturalness, on the texts sounding as natural as any text originally conceived of in the respective language. This is the real touchstone of translation, as it relies on the translators professional experience, inborn gift and intuitive skills, as well as on inferring and analytical knowledge. During this last step the translator should continue to weigh all the time: what is lost, what is gained or regained through translation, or else, what is added (through TL connotations, distribution or selectional restrictions). Such a five-step sequence is a didactic, normative approach to the translation process, it may prove efficient within a novices training programme. The sequence of these steps is not rigid at all, as the translators strategy essentially consists of going backward and forward within the source and target text, the latter being in-the-making during the translational process.

COURSE 6 TEXT ANALYSES Note on the translation of the title There are several possible translation strategies regarding titles (of books, articles, films, etc.): the title can be preserved in the language of the original (very rare cases) in the following cases: If the translator considers it untranslatable, in the sense that too much of the cultural background would be lost if it were simply transposed into the target language If it simply were a proper name (which is rendered as such) If the title included a concept already made very popular among the target readership, therefore a cultural transfer is assumed to have already taken place in the target society. Otherwise, a title may be translated lexically, namely true-to-the-word translation, by means of which a kind of transposition of meaning is performed, which by definition, is very close to the source lexical unit of meaning. Otherwise, a title may be translated freely, by providing a totally newlyconnoting concept in the source language, meant to render the basic meaning of the source title. As a rule, a good translator would resort in this latter case to an idiomatic, equally valid and most relevant phrase in the target language meant to adequately (and accessibly) match the source language idiom, metaphor, or collocative phrase (e.g. one classical pair is the title Gone with the wind=Pe aripile vantului. Text analysis Text 1:Unwanted Paragraph 1

(1) It is said that Americans at large do not care. This may well change. If Mr. Starrs report does not nauseate them (as perhaps it may not), they may well be rattled by signs of downturn in the economy. The presidents high job-approval ratings have a fragile look about them. Other polls, measuring public respect for the presidents character and his sharing of their values, are already dismally low. The public would desperately prefer the matter to be dropped; but that may be because they find it too painful to be reminded, day after day, of the character of the man who is their representative to the world. Translation Text 1:Indezirabil (1) Se spune ca americanilor, in general, nu prea le pasa ce se intimpla. Daca raportul domnului Starr nu le provoaca greata (ceea ce probabil ca nici nu le va provoca), in schimb ceea ce-i nelinisteste cu adevarat sunt semnele unei crize economice. Rezultatele statistice care favorizeaza inalta pozitie prezidentiala au un ecou destul de slab printre americani. Alte anchete, care masoara respectful opiniei publice pentru caracterul si personalitatea presedintelui cat si felul cum acesta impartaseste valorile morale ale poporului inregistreaza deja cote ingrijitor de scazute. Publicul American ar dori ca subiectul sa fie mai degraba dat uitarii, dar aceasta s-ar putea satora foarte bine si faptului ca este prea dureros sa-i tot fie amintit, zi de zi, de caracterul unui barbat care este reprezentantul tuturor americanilor in lume. Notes on paragraph 1: this is one compact paragraph in terms of information units packed up in short, compounding or gerundial forms in the source language. The target version is much longer, covering many more lines than the original . Here are a few such examples of compounds, complex nominal phrases, or relative clauses that are selfexplanatory when rendered in Romanian language: English source phrase Romanian target equivalent Ceea ce-i nelinisteste cu adevarat sunt semnele They may be rattled by signs of unei crize economice downturn in economy The presidents high job-approval Rezultatele statistice care favorizeaza inalta ratings have a fragile look about pozitie prezidentiala au un ecou slab printre americani them Other polls, measuring public respect Alte anchete, care masoara respectful opiniei for the presidents character and his publice pentru caracterul si personalitatea

sharing their values, are already presedintelui dismally low.

cat

si

felul

cum

acesta

impartaseste valorile morale ale poporului este

inregistreaza cote ingrijorator de scazute. unui barbat care of the character of a man who is caracterul their representative to the world. reprezentantul tuturor americanilor in lume.

I offer no further comment on the ways of the above equivalents, as they represent one variant, to be replaceable, if possible, by any other structure, on condition it should be equally acceptable and appropriate in terms of textual standards (cf. De Beaugrande&Dressler, 1988). Paragraph 2 (2) Some in his party Mr. Lieberman among them think Mr. Clinton may yet recover with a fuller and broader apology. It is hard to see how. First apologies are what count, and Mr. Clinton made his these through gritted teeth. He has subsequently said sorry a bit more, but always under compulsion. Besides, since his lying was so sincerely done, why should anyone believe his most sincere apology? Tranlsation (2) Unii membri ai partidului sau printre care si dl. Lieberman cred ca dl. Clinton ar putea sa-si revina, daca ar invoca o scuza si mai mare. Este insa dificil de vazut in ce fel. Mai intai, scuzele conteaza, iar dl. Clinton le-a cerut din virful buzelor. Si-a cerut scuze de mai multe ori, dar de fiecare data aflat fiind sub presiune. In plus, deoarece minciuna a fost atat de sincer ticluita, de ce lumea sa mai crada atunci tot asa de bine si o scuza, rostita la fel de sincer? Notes on paragraph 2: a first remark is that the prepositional phrase with a fuller and broader apology is translated as a conditional clause, in order to suggest the idea that repetition of such a gesture would not be advisable any more. A mere transposition in the TL, e.g. cu o scuza si mai mare would not entirely render the speculative tone, inscribed in the source phrasing:may yet recover. In the TL the modal verb ar putea is then paired with the hypothetical conditional of daca ar invoca. The infinitive to see is rendered

through the Romanian supin (de vazut), again having a prospective sense, to which there was added the cohesive dar. through gritted teeth has no perfect equivalent, but the meaning is that he made his apologies unwillingly and unconvincingly, this idea being transferable into Romanian by the idiomatic phrase din virful buzelor, with the same meaning. The exact sense of under compulsion is that he did that being forced to do so; sub presiune is somewhat ambiguous, but it logically entails obligation too; a variant to this formula would be fiind obligat, but then, again,, this would sound incomplete in Romanian. The gerundial plus ome explanatory phrase, e.g. s-o faca would be necessary. Repeated use of the subjunctive within the same sentence or paragraph as short as the present one makes the text sound heavy, this is the reason there was avoided extensive use of it. An appropriate equivalent for the source phrase his lying was so sincerely done can be the Romanian collocation minciuna ticluita, meant to render the idea that it was a lie sincerely expressed for the public to believe. As to the last interrogative sentence, a logically constructed persuasive question, a translator has to intervene, in order to make it equally powerful in the TL. The equivalent to anyone in this case is lumea , which is indefinite, but it lacks the sense of any (oricine); still, the collective noun, as a difference from the distributive pronoun, is more generic by definition, although this is a controversial issue in grammar. To make the basic meaning of this sentence rhetorically relevant, I also added a set of discourse cohesives: atunci tot asa de binesi; rostita la fel de which seem quite natural in the strategic approach to a Romanian text. Text 2: Saudis wont help in any raid on Iraq Paragraph 1 (1) JIDDA With Saudi Arabia refusing to support a military strike on Iraq, Secretary of Defense William Cohen said Sunday that he would not seek permission to launch fighters and bombers from Saudi territory in the event of an attack.

Translation Text 2: Arabia Saudita nu va participa la nici unul din raidurile impotriva Iracului Paragraf 1 (1) JIDDA La refuzul Arabiei Saudite de a sprijini o interventie militara asupra Iracului, Ministerul Apararii William Cohen a declarat ca nu va cauta sa obtina permisiunea de a lansa avioane de lupta si bomardiere contra Iracului de pe teritoriul Arabiei Saudite in cazul unui atac. Notes on paragraph 1: the first paragraph is practically rephrased in Romanian, as there is no other syntactic possibility to render the English participial construction headed by the preposition WITH acting as a complement which introduces the absolute ING-clause with its own subject. military strike was translated by interventie militara, to avoid the repetition of atac, in case strke had been rendered by the Romanian atac. Moreover, atac armat is an explicit phrase, but it seems stylistically adequate in this context. Paragraph 2 (2) Mr. Cohen won more support this weekend from Canada and several European allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to use armed force if needed to destroy Iraqi weapons. Traducere Paragraf 2 (2) La sfarsitul acestei saptamani, dl. Cohen a castigat si mai mult sprijin din partea Canadei si a mai multor tari europene aliate Pactului Nord-Atlantic de a folosi forta in caz ca este necesar, pentru distrugerea armelor irakiene. Notes on paragraph 2: the word order in the target text is changed, so as to correspond to the information structure typical of Romanian. The time adverbial,

la sfarsitul acestei saptamani is placed in a topical position, to mark the reference time of the event, whereas in the source language, it is only placed at the end of the main clause, in a focus position. Conclusions on teaching translation methods In the process of translation one needs not only linguistic, but also translational competence. Translation competence may be judged upon as a union of acquired and innate receptive and reproductive skill and knowledge in both source and target language. Such competence, which is rather communicative than merely linguistic, reflects the ability to transfer messages between the two languages. The translational competence is intertextual and not interlinguistic; this explains why an individual who is fluent in a foreign language is not necessarily an effective translator. Translation competence implies the ability to synchronize these two source monolingual knowledge areas and bring about a communicatively effective interlingual and intertextual transfer. A trained translator should be able to translate very difficult scientific and technical texts, but she/he should also have acquired more generalized specializations, such as research skills, terminology management, and electronic information sources.