ACROSS LANGUAGES AND CULTURES
Editor-in-chief: Kinga Klaudy
Volume 6, Issue 2, 2005
pp. 143-172
BACK TO TRANSLATION AS LANGUAGE
BRIAN MOSSOP1, ERNST-AUGUST GUTT, JEAN PEETERS, KINGA KLAUDY,
ROBIN SETTON AND SONJA TIRKKONEN-CONDIT
1School
of Translation
Glendon College, York University
2275 Bayview Avenue, York Hall 241, Toronto, Ontario M4N 3M6, Canada
Tel.: 1-416-973-1142, Fax: 1-416-973-3325
E-mail: brmossop@yorku.ca
Abstract: In this article, the six authors discuss the question of whether Translation Studies should devote more
attention to the linguistic aspect of translation, in view of the tendency in recent years to focus on its social functioning.
In the first part, each author tackles one or more aspects of this issue; in the second part, the authors respond to each
other’s views. Topics covered include what kind of language production translation is, whether translational language
arises out of a particular form of communication or is itself a linguistic system, the relationship of Translation Studies
to linguistics and other disciplines, the behaviour of particular language pairs when they clash during translation,
translational language from the producer’s as opposed to the receiver’s viewpoint, and the relation of the linguistic to
the social and to the cognitive. Reference is made to methodologies such as keystroke logging and the use of corpora,
and also to a range of past and present linguistic approaches to translation, from comparative stylistics to relevance
theory. Suggestions are offered regarding the directions to be taken by linguistically oriented studies of translation.
pp. 173-193
COMPARING MODALITIES: COGNATES
AS A CASE IN POINT
MIRIAM SHLESINGER1 AND BRENDA MALKIEL2
1
Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
E-mail: shlesm@mail.biu.ac.il
Ph.: +972-3-5318227
2School
for Multidisciplinary Studies
Beit Berl College, Kfar Sava, Israel
E-mail: brendamalkiel@yahoo.com
Abstract: Because interpreting affords only limited opportunity for restatement or corrections, it can be seen as the
practitioner’s default version, with written translation representing a more polished rendition. Thus, a comparison of the
target texts of interpreting and translation can shed light not only on the differences between the two modalities as such,
but on the processes involved in each of the two as well. In this case, target texts from interpreting and translation were
used to investigate cognate status, performance on false cognates, and cognate processing. In the first stage of this
experiment, seven professional translators/interpreters interpreted an English text into their L1, Hebrew; four years
later, they rendered the same ST in writing. The source text contained 51 words for which Hebrew offered true
cognates and 10 for which it offered false cognates. The data show that: (a) cognate status is most often consistent
across modalities; (b) noncognate synonyms are more prevalent in translation than in interpreting; (c) when a
participant produces a noncognate translation in one modality and a cognate translation in the other, the noncognate is
much likelier to be produced in translation, and (d) performance on false cognates is far superior in translation.
pp. 195-200
THE “TRANSLATED” SPANISH SERVICE
OF THE BBC
ROBERTO A. VALDEÓN
Departamento de Filología Anglogermánica y Francesa, Universidad de Oviedo
Campus El Milán, Oviedo, E-33011 Spain
Phone: +34 85 104568
E-mail: valdeon@uniovi.es
Abstract: Critical linguistics has applied innovative research methods to the study of news discourse over the
past three decades. The launching of the Spanish Internet service of the BBC poses interesting research questions as
regards news production in Spanish by an English-speaking medium concerning the specificity of the service, the use
of translated versions of BBCWorld English items, the strategies used in the production of the texts and the quality of
the mediation. In this paper we shall use elements of Fairclough’s model (1992, 1995a, 1995b, 2001) to analyse a
corpus of 134 texts from BBCMundo and BBCWorld. In the introduction, two key concepts both in Translation Studies
(TS) and critical linguistics will be discussed: the term translation itself and the role of text producers as mediators. In
the subsequent three sections, we shall proceed to analyse the corpus. In the first one, we will attempt to find out
whether we are faced with texts specifically conceived for a Spanish readership or whether this medium resorts to
translating source texts from the English website. Secondly, we shall trace the existence of English source versions and
compare them with the Spanish articles in order to evaluate the strategies used by text producers, and see whether the
TTs result from translational or editorial processes. Finally, we shall discuss the quality of the mediating process and
articulate an explanation for the existence of a Spanish service of the BBC within the context of modern-day media
markets.
pp. 221-241
FAITHFULNESS VERSUS FLUENCY:
COUNTING THE COST
RITVA LEPPIHALME
Department of English
P.O. Box 24 (Unioninkatu 40)
00014 University of Helsinki, Finland
Ph.: +358 9 191 23153
Fax: +358 9 191 23072
E-mail: ritva.leppihalme@helsinki.fi
Abstract: This paper discusses the translation of thematic allusions in literary texts, comparing the contrasting
global translation strategies used in the North American translations of two novels by the Finnish writer Väinö Linna.
One translation (1957) uses extensive cuts to remove allusions (and other culture-specific elements) while the other
(2001–03) renders the author’s words faithfully but provides little explicitation for source-cultural allusions unfamiliar
in the target culture. Both strategies result in target texts in which part of the author’s theme of questioning received
interpretations of critical periods in Finnish history through allusions to nationalist and revolutionary sources is lost or
obscured. The different translation situations and the role of editors are also considered, placing the study in a context
of cultural imbalance and of translations of literature written in a language of limited diffusion.
pp. 243-257
TRANSLATION AND AMERICANISM IN BRAZIL 1920–1970
IRENE HIRSCH1  JOHN MILTON2
1Universidade de Campinas
13081-970 Campinas, SP, Brazil
Ph: + 55 19 3788 1610
E-mail: hirenerih@terra.com.br
2Universidade de São Paulo
05508-900 São Paulo, SP, Brazil
Ph: +55 11 3091 5052
E-mail: jmilton.usp.br
Abstract: This article examines American cultural influences in Brazil, particularly in terms of translations
published in Brazil. It proposes that the great majority of American books published occupied a conservative position
in the Brazilian literary system, and in certain periods, such as the post-1964 military dictatorship, the US government
financed the publication of American works translated into Portuguese in order to help to provide the right-wing
military government with a cultural focus. However, the importation of American literature has been seen in very
different ways: in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the cheapness of American culture and the global aims of the
future superpower were already being criticized. For others, America meant democracy and an economic model to
emulate. In the 1920s and 1930s the publisher, translator and writer of children’s stories, Monteiro Lobato, saw the
importation of American ideas and technology as a way of taking Brazil out of its backwardness, and expected
translations of American works to counterbalance the dominant French trends. In the most repressive years of the
military dictatorship, from the end of 1968 to the mid-seventies, the translation of Beat poetry acted as a form of
protest.