翻译学术语（英文）

From Translation Research Projects 3, ed. Anthony Pym, Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2011. pp. 75-110. http://isg.urv.es/publicity/isg/publications/trp_3_2011/index.htm Translation research terms: a tentative glossary for moments of perplexity and dispute ANTHONY PYM Intercultural Studies Group Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain The following is a list of terms with recommendations for their use in research on translation and interpreting. The list has been compiled on the basis of doubts that have arisen in discussions with students completing doctoral research within the Intercultural Studies Group at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain. In some cases our notes merely alert researchers to some of the ambiguities and vagaries of fairly commonplace nomenclatures. In other cases, however, we have sought to standardize terms across research projects in a particular field (for example, translator training or risk analysis). For some particular terms we recommend abstinence, mostly because indiscriminate use has bereft the word of immediate specificity. In all cases, though, our basic plea is that researchers make their terms as clear and specific as possible, since the discipline of Translation Studies in currently unable to do that for them. Accepted and variant usages of many terms can usefully be consulted in Shuttleworth and Cowie (1997), although the references are now dated, and the MonAKO glossary, among other sources. The abbreviation q.v. means quod vide (“which see”), indicating that you might like to go and look at the thing next to the abbreviation. Our thanks to the following for their suggestions and additions: Christy Fung-Ming Liu, Şeyda Eraslan, Natasa Pavlović, Ignacio García and Diane Howard. Here we go: A language, B language vs. L1, L2: The terms “A language”, “B language” and “C language” are traditionally used in translator training institutions, where they indicate the language that the trainee has nominated as their primary or strongest (A), then the languages in which they need most training (B and C). A complete bilingual might thus request “double A” status of some kind, and many learners will effectively have a B1 and a B2 (i.e. two “second” languages at about the same level). More or less the same meanings are used by interpreters when naming their working languages. On the other hand, the terms “L1”, “L2”, etc. are used in the study of language acquisition, sometimes to indicate the order in which languages are acquired, and more normally to separate the primary or “mother” tongue from the others. Although the two nomenclatures often overlap (the trainee’s A language is usually their L1), there is a certain logic in separating the criteria of language acquisition from those of translator training. Recommendation: Leave as is. Agency: Term traditionally used in sociology and political science to describe the subject’s capacity to carry out actions, i.e. the subject’s relative power (q.v.). A group of translation scholars has agreed that it means “willingness and ability to act” (Koskinen and Kinnunen 2010: 6). The insistence on “willingness” introduces psychological dimensions that could seem peripheral to the sociological use of the term, inviting myriad confusions with habitus (q.v.). It nevertheless makes sense to ask not just what effective scope or permission a person has to 76 From Translation Research Projects 3, ed. Anthony Pym, Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2011. pp. 75-110. http://isg.urv.es/publicity/isg/publications/trp_3_2011/index.htm bring about change, but also how that person can receive or conceive of the idea to bring about change, and that second dimension might concern “willingness”. As such, the problem of agency is largely the philosophical question of free will: if we are determined by our social environment, how is it that we are then able to change that social environment? The concept of agency evokes that problem but does not solve it. Solutions might nevertheless lie in the contradictory social determinations of the translatorial subject, especially given the many possible intercultural locations available and the capacity of people to move between locations. Recommendation: Refer to “agency” in the sense of “willingness and ability to act”, but do not assume that the concept in itself does anything more than name a problem. Arguments: Term used by Pavlović (2010) for the self-evaluations and self-justifications translators use in Think Aloud Protocols (q.v.), such as “sounds better”, “this is what they wanted to say”, “this is what the reader will understand” or “the rule says this”. Recommendation: The term is clearer than the term “evaluation”, although the list of possible arguments still needs some formal shape. Audiovisual translation: Translation that accompanies spoken language and visual communication, as in film, plays, opera, videogames, mobile telephony, computer games, indeed any electronic communication involving sound and images. Recommendation: Respect the term, but always with the awareness that the field is huge, subject to myriad constraints, and difficult to generalize about. Autonomous vs. heteronomous recruitment: Terms proposed by Cronin (2002) to distinguish between recruiting intermediaries on the client’s side, and recruiting them from the “other” side. Thus, when Columbus went in search of the Indies he took a Jewish interpreter with him (on his side, hence “autonomous”); when that interpreter proved useless in the Caribbean, Columbus captured some natives to turn them into interpreters (from the other side, hence “heteronomous”, and subject to suspicion). The distinction is valid in many situations, and a general shift can be observed from the heteronomous to the autonomous, in order to ensure greater trustworthiness. The terms, however, are far from transparent (“autonomous” could also mean “independent”, which is far from the case here). The more significant problem is that intermediaries often come from social groups that are wholly neither on one side nor the other: Jews and Mozarabs in Medieval Hispania, the Jewish interpreter with Columbus, or Diego Colón, the putative son of Columbus born of interaction with the cultural other. Recommendation: If you think there are only two sides, why not “home recruitment” vs. “foreign recruitment”? At least people stand a chance of knowing what you are talking about. Bitext: Term proposed by Harris (1988, 2010) for aligned segments of start texts and target texts in their original textual order of presentation. That is, with the whole start text aligned with the whole of the target text. The different between bitexts and aligned corpora is that the latter are designed for use without concern for textual linearity (i.e. the original order of the segments). The term “bitext” is nevertheless loosely used without reference to that linearity, such that it is applied to any pair or aligned segments. In this sense, it is used as a rough synonym for “translation memory” or “translation memory database”. Harris (1988) originally presented “bi-text” as a psychological concept describing the two texts existing momentarily in the mind of the translating translator, although there is scant evidence to suggest this actually happens. Recommendation: The term can be useful, although it is fraught with divergent usages and one can almost as easily talk about “aligned texts”, “aligned segments”, “translation memory database”, and so on. There would seem to be no overriding reason for the hyphenated form “bi-text”. Brief vs. instructions: The term “brief” has commonly been used to render the German Auftrag, which is what Skopostheorie uses to talk about the instructions that a translator receives from a client. A “brief” is more like what a lawyer receives from a client: a general open-ended mandate to reach a goal or solve a problem. Vermeer, writing in English, uses the term 77 From Translation Research Projects 3, ed. Anthony Pym, Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2011. pp. 75-110. http://isg.urv.es/publicity/isg/publications/trp_3_2011/index.htm “commission”, which is like what an artistic painter receives: “fill this space up with whatever you like”. Gouadec, on the other hand, believe that the client should fix a maximum of aspects of the text to be produced; he thus proposes “job description”. The problem here is that the translation profession never really uses the terms “brief”, “commission”, or “job description”. What you get, at best, is a set of instructions. The default term should thus be instructions. CAT tools: The term “computer-aided translation” (or “computer-assisted translation”) is now a misnomer, since computers are involved in almost all translation jobs, and in a lot of interpreting as well. The term should be replaced by clear reference to the technologies actually involved (e.g. translation memories, machine translation, terminology database). Recommendation: Avoid. Checking: Term used in European standard EN-15038 for changes made to the translation by the translator, as opposed to revisions (q.v.) and reviews (q.v.), which are carried out by people other than the translator (cf. TEP). This term does not seem to have gained standardized status in industry or research, and it has nothing within its semantics to suggest that only the translator can do this. Recommendation: Prefer “self-revision”, at least for the purposes of research. Chuchotage vs. whisper interpreting: This is where the interpreter sits next to (or somehow behind) the person receiving the rendition, and speaks quietly so as not to disrupt the wider setting (e.g. a conference). Since “chuchoter” means “to whisper”, and not much else, there is no possible justification for the French term, unless you want to attract Mortisha Adams. Recommendation: whisper interpreting, although “whispered interpreting” can also be found and does make sense. Collaborative translation protocol: Term used by Pavlović (2007) for the verbal report of a group of (student) translators who are working together on the one translation. This sense is not to be confused with “collaborative translation” (q.v.) as a synonym of “crowd-sourcing” (q.v.), “community translation” (q.v.), etc. Recommendation: Since the voluntary aspect is missing here, it might be better to refer to “group translation protocols”. Collaborative translation: Synonym of “crowd-sourcing” (q.v.), “community translation” (q.v.), part of CT3 (q.v.), etc., used for group translating where the work is largely voluntary (i.e. unpaid in financial terms). “Collaboration” in English always sounds like illicit help given to the enemy, as in the case of the French who helped the Nazi occupation of France. More appropriate terms in English might be “participative translation” or “volunteer translation”. Then again, if the idea of collaboration connotes something illicit or underground, those values might not be entirely out of place in many situations. Recommendation: Volunteer translation (q.v.). Community interpreting: Term used to cover language mediation in medical encounters, asylum hearings, and police stations, often extended to include court interpreting. Alternatives are “public service interpreting” (especially in the United Kingdom), “cultural interpreting”, “community-based interpreting”, and “dialogue interpreting”, which refers more to the triadic nature of the encounters rather than to their institutional settings and overlaps with the term “liaison interpreting”, which specifies two-way mediated communication. The problem with the reference to “community” is that all translating and interpreting involves communities of one kind or another, and should involve ethical issues similar to the ones dealt with here, so there is no substantial specificity indicated. Further, the interactions are hardly from within any pristine language community as such: they involve the provision or intrusion of government services, and thus encounters between communities. These ideological aspects are scarcely neutral. A further problem is current use of the term “community translation” (q.v.) in a very different sense (“community translation” usually involves voluntary participation; “community interpreting” can be carried out by professionals). Recommendation: use the more specific institutional terms wherever possible: court interpreting, medical interpreting, etc., refer to 78 From Translation Research Projects 3, ed. Anthony Pym, Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2011. pp. 75-110. http://isg.urv.es/publicity/isg/publications/trp_3_2011/index.htm dialogue interpreting as the more general term, and refer to the ethical issues involved in all mediated communication. Community translation: Term used for the practice whereby non-professionals translate software or websites that they actually use (cf. collaborative translation, crowd-sourcing, fan translation, user-based translation, lay translation, citizen translation, etc.). The problem here is that the term can also (in the United Kingdom and Australia, at least) refer to the use of written translation in the areas of “community interpreting”, which has so far been quite a different sphere. The ideological problems are moreover similar to those of “community interpreting” in that legitimacy is accorded to some kinds of community (often web-based virtual communities) but not to others. Recommendation: Volunteer translation (q.v.). Comparable corpora vs. parallel texts; parallel corpora vs. bitexts: A terminological mess created when Mona Baker (1995) decided that corpus linguistics should use the term “comparable corpora” to compare a body of translations in a language (e.g. legal texts translated into English) with a body of non-translations in the same language (e.g. legal texts originally written in English). Translation scholars had previously adopted the term “parallel texts” to describe the same kind of comparison (e.g. to translate a sales contract into English, first find a sales contract written in English and use it as a “parallel text”), a term that Chesterman has since sought to replace with “non-translation” (NT) (q.v.). To make matters worse, Baker then decided to use the term “parallel corpora” for what previous scholars had termed “bitexts” (sets of texts where segments in one language are aligned with corresponding segments in another language). That was not a red-letter day for the unity of Translation Studies. Recommendation: If you are doing corpus work, define your terms. For more general work, stick to non- translation (NT) and bitext, when appropriate. Competence: Currently popular term for the set of things that a professional knows (knowledge), is able to do (skills), and is able to do while adopting a certain relation to others (dispositions or attitudes). “Translator competence” would thus be the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to become a translator. The concept can be reduced to just two components: declarative knowledge (“knowing that”) and operational knowledge (“knowing how”). As such, the term “competence” has very little to do with the way the same term was used in (Chomsky’s) linguistics to indicate a set of rules that underlie performance. A further problem is that most models of translator competence include numerous components (such as “knowledge of Language A”, “knowledge of translation technologies”, “ability to apply translation strategies”, “confidence”, “speed”) without any assurance that the list is not open-ended or subject to radical historical change. There is no empirical evidence to indicate that the components are indeed separate, or that they are combined such that learning in one component entails progress in others. Recommendation: Avoid assumptions that translator competence is a recognized unified and stable object; prefer, wherever possible, the more specific terms skill, knowledge, and disposition, with degrees of expertise operative within all three. Constrained translation: Term proposed by Mayoral et al. (1988) for the basic view that all translations are subject to a number of non-linguistic constraints, from temporal and spatial restrictions through to the need to not contradict information conveyed by sound or image. This is a very neat view that seems not to have had the repercussion it merits, especially in the field of audiovisual translation (q.v.). The basic terminological problem is that all translating is constrained in one way or another, so the term is not really saying much. The boundaries between the linguistic and the non-linguistic have also been blurred by work in the area of pragmatics. Recommendation: Talk freely about “translation constraints”, no matter whether they are linguistic or not, in full awareness that some constraints are always present. Crowdsourcing: Term coined in 2006 for the practice whereby non-professionals perform tasks that would otherwise be out-sourced to independent professional agencies. In the field of translation it functions as a synonym for community translation, fan translation, user-based 79 From Translation Research Projects 3, ed. Anthony Pym, Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2011. pp. 75-110. http://isg.urv.es/publicity/isg/publications/trp_3_2011/index.htm translation, lay translation, self-organized citizen translation, etc. It has been used for translation practices at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Adobe, Symantec, Sun, and Twitter. Although now widespread in technology businesses, the main disadvantage of the term is that it is a cheap mutation of the standard business practice of “out-sourcing”, which is the only way anyone could justify the word “crowd” (because it sounds like “out”). The term thus lacks specific reference. Recommendation: Volunteer translation (q.v.). The hyphenated “crowd-sourcing” has the virtue of marginally greater clarity and significantly smaller presumption of widespread acceptance. CT3: Siglum for “community, crowdsourced and collaborative translation” (cf. community translation, crowdsourcing), glossed as “translation of, for, and by the people” (DePalma and Kelly 2008). Here tech-talk meets activist hype, selling “best practices” for a price (you have to pay to get DePalma and Kelly’s full report – it was clearly not written of, for, and by volunteers). Recommendation: Volunteer translation (q.v.). Cultural translation: Term with many different meanings, most of them equally vague and ideological. Uses range from British social anthropology in the 1960s through to Bhabha and followers. The general notion is that translation is not just of texts, but of entire cultural representations and identities. When an ethnographer describes a tribe, they thus translate a culture into the language of ethnography; museums offer iconic and linguistic translations of entire cultures; migrants translate themselves, forming cultural hybrids, and so on. Recommendation: If you want to use the term, specify what you mean. If not, avoid. Our general preference here is for a discipline focused on communication across different cultures and languages, rather than processes that occur within just one culture or language. Cultural turn: One of numerous “turns” (q.v.) that are supposed to have transformed the whole of Translation Studies. Since concerns with wider cultural issues can be found as far back as the Russian Formalists and the Prague School, there is little evidence of one unitary transformation having taken place at the time of the “cultural turn” promoted by Lefevere and Bassnett (1990). Recommenda