All texts have a scriptor / author, they are written at a given point in time and space, they reflect a given culture, they keep a reader in mind and they imply knowledge which has to be shared. Another unique feature of all texts is that they always convey more than their language meaning.
Translation is a mental process which leads to reformulation of a text from one language to another and raises questions concerning the mode of production of a new text which is the translation of the SLT (source language text) and contains equivalent text material.
In this unit, I will make an attempt to show how texts are constructed and how the meaning is made out. As Candlin (bell, 1991: 110) puts it, ".it [translation] concentrates our attention on the process in a very tangible and goal- directed way. Negotiating the meaning of a text is not just a sociolinguistic matter it is a psycholinguistic one as well." In this unit on the Translator as an interpreter and a commentator, we plan to focus on the process of translation and not analyse the structure of the finished product.
A pointer to all translators is that the act of translation requires both language processing and text processing to come to a correct interpretation of its meaning since they are mediating between participants of two different language communities. The general perspective of this unit will be one of translation as a dynamic interpretative process.
Translation requires a double awareness, that of linguistic texture in terms of structure and discourse, and of text processing in terms of construction and interpretation linking linguistics with psychology in an attempt to understand what it is that translators do when they translate. He goes on to say that they engage in the analysis of the texts they have to translate and the texts they themselves create. |
