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22Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 3 (2017 10) 418-425
УДК 81'255.2:6
Translating a Specialised Text According to the Strategy of Tertiary Translation
Raviddin M. Shamilov*
Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistics University 36 Bolshaya Pecherskaya, Nizhny Novgorod,
603155, Russia
Received 10.08.2016, received in revised form 30.08.2016, accepted 10.01.2017
According to the communicative-functional approach to translation any translation is made by applying a certain translation strategy and a number of relevant tactics. When choosing a translation strategy, a translator is supposed to define the goal of translation on the basis of a complex analysis of a communicative situation of specialised translation. One of the strategies is the strategy of tertiary translation. In the research paper by establishing a communicative situation of specialised translation requiring the strategy in question the author attempts to ascertain translation tactics which provide its successful implementation.
Keywords: communicative situation of specialised translation, strategy of tertiary translation, extralinguistic context, translation tactics.
DOI: 10.17516/1997-1370-0049.
Research area: philology.
Introduction
It is well known that specialised translation traditionally deals with all non-literary texts whose function is primarily to convey information relating to some facts and/or objects. Accordingly, this type of translation is also called informative translation (Komissarov, 1990). The texts belonging to this category hardly ever cause a translator a problem in identifying the target recipients. Such an assertion is utmost true in respect to scientific and technical translation, which constitute one of the major and most translationally demanded functional subcategories of specialised translation. Who
© Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
* Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected]
would dare doubt that a scientific paper, say, in chemistry will be translated for the target language (TL) experts in chemistry? It is implied by the source communicative situation where the source text (ST) is addressed to the chemical experts as well. A highly specialised technical-engineering text originally produced for design-engineers of a source language (SL) company will hardly be of any interest to TL non-experts. The sameness of the recipients is usually observed in a communicative situation of specialised translation commissioned by a target text (TT) expert-recipient. Considering the practical orientation of specialised translation,
I would prefer to call its recipients consumers after Yu. V. Vannikov (Vannikov, 1987) since, to my mind, a recipient of a specialised text does not simply receive or read it but rather consumes the information given in the text which necessarily results in applying it in his/her practical activity (Shamilov, 2015).
The equality of the communicative situations implies the coincidence of the extratextual factors (Nord, 2005), or situational characteristics (Colina, 2015) which constitute a wide extralinguistic context and which should be specified by a translator during his/her complex pre-translational analysis (Petrova, 2007). The most important point, however, is that in the exemplified communicative situations a TT expert-consumer's activity echoes that of a source text expert-consumer as far as the needs, motives and goals are concerned. In this context the communicatively equivalent translation seems to be the most applicable strategy used to maintain in the TT the primary function and provide a communicative effect on the TT consumer similar to that of ST (Sdobnikov, 2015).
In this paper I shall consider a communicative situation of specialised translation initiated by an expert-consumer as well, but unlike the aforementioned situations, it will require another strategy of translation - the strategy of tertiary translation.
Strategy of Tertiary Translation and a Specialised Text
The term t e r t i a r y with regard to translation was first introduced by M. Ya. Zwilling to denote a translation carried out in the interests of the third parties not directly involved in the communicative situation. Unlike the traditional, or communicative (the term used by M. Ya. Zwilling) translation, a tertiary translation does not imply the reproduction of the original communicative effect in the TT and is mostly
determined by the expectations of a TT recipient on the one hand, and how a translator satisfies those expectations on the other (Zwilling, 2009). Based on M. Ya. Zwilling's idea a sound definition of this concept has been provided by V. V. Sdobnikov. According to V. V. Sdobnikov, the strategy of tertiary translation is "a comprehensive programme of accomplishing translation activity aimed at creating such a TT which would satisfy its receivers who perform another role [in a given communicative situation of translation] than the participants of the SL communicative situation and pursue a goal different from that implied by ST's author" (Sdobnikov, 2015).
This means that in order to apply this strategy in a communicative situation of specialised translation, the situation itself should be initiated by a TT consumer whose activity would differ from that of the ST consumer in need, motive and goal, not to mention the extralinguistic context. Although in practice such a situation is a rare case I, nevertheless, shall attempt to establish one. An expert, let us say, a scholar in linguistics, is doing research dedicated to establishing linguistic features of scientific Turkish compared to scientific Russian. It is obvious that to a Russian speaking linguist numerous scientific papers or other texts of this style in Turkish will be of little help unless he/she speaks Turkish too. The only way to solve the problem here is to get those papers translated into the mother tongue of the linguist. The linguist turns to a translator for translation. This very intention of the linguist can actually be regarded as a starting point of the communicative situationof specialised translation. To continue our reasoning and demonstrate how the strategy of tertiary translation (STT) actually gets implemented in the relevant communicative situation of specialised translation a practice material will be needed. To that end we will take a Turkish paper in translation studies titled Kulturler Arasi ve Kulturler Ustu ileti§im Araci
Olarak Qeviri (Translation as an intercultural and Transcultural Medium) by Sueda Ozbent published in Qeviribilim ve Uygulamalari Dergisi (Journal of Translation Studies) in 2015 (Ozbent, 2015, p. 13 - 22). It should not be forgotten that upon receiving the ST - paper - a translator simultaneously gets translation brief (term used by Ch. Nord) from the TT expert-consumer - a Russian linguist. Briefing the translator on what should be rendered in the TT above all the linguist is governed by the goal of his/her activity as well as its need and motive. The clearer the translation brief for the translator, the higher his/her chances to succeed in satisfying the TT consumer's expectations. No doubt that the translation brief seems particularly vital when the STT is to be used.
As a matter of fact, the translation brief is only a part albeit the most essential of the data to be identified by a translator during the pre-translational analysis which we already mentioned earlier. According to the communicative-functional approach to translation this analysis
is indispensable for a whole translation process since it actually tells a translator which translation strategy and tactics to choose. And mostly, as we have already been anticipating it just from the very beginning of the research, the decision is determined by to what extent the SL communicative situation and the communicative situation of specialised translation are close to or different from one another as far as the extratextual factors, or situational characteristics are concerned. Specifically, with regard to the ST represented by the Turkish paper the analysis of both of the situations by a translator will reveal the following extralinguistic context (Table 1).
As illustrated in the table, the need and the goal of the Russian linguist acting both as the specialised translation initiator and the TT consumer have nothing in common with the need and the goal, say, of a hypothetic TT consumer-translatologist. It is very likely that the latter would use the information in the same field of science where the ST was born and absolutely in the very same way as intended by the ST author. The
Table 1
SL communicative situation Communicative situation of specialised translation
ST's author: a Turkish scholar in Translation Studies or a Specialised translation initiator: a Russian
translatologist; ST's consumer: colleagues-translatologists in general and those who speak Turkish in particular; Goal (function ofthe ST): to present the results of her research dedicated to the establishment of the role of translation as an intercultural and transcultural medium; Intention: to try to affect a consumer's vision of translation and even create a new image of it in his/her mind providing convincing arguments; Motive: to win esteem of her colleagues who are supposed to get acquainted with the paper, form an opinion about it and in one way or another appraise the work; Time (of receipt): as soon as the paper is published in the relevant journal or magazine, or put on the web; Place (of receipt): the specialised journal/magazine or website dealing with the Translation Studies; Medium: in writing. linguist, presumably comparativist; TT's consumer: the Russian linguist, comparativist; Activity: scientific; Need: information which is to be extracted from the ST and to be used as part of practice material of the linguistic research; Motive: being directly determined by the global scientific activity of the linguist it can be defined as to assert his/her place in the scientific community; Goal of the activity: to apply the needed information to be rendered in the TT in research; Goal of the translation: to ensure that the consumer will have the opportunity of getting the needed information and further applying it in practice.
Russian linguist, however, notwithstanding the adjacency of his/her field of science - linguistics with that of the TT consumer - translatology, will use the information in a way different than that of his/her hypothetic counterpart. In fact, the information itself to be rendered in the TT to satisfy the consumers' expectations differs. Thus, for a consumer-translatologist it is important that subject-logical content of the ST should be reproduced, whereas the consumer-linguist taking into account the tasks and aims of his/her research will be interested foremost in the semantic content and stylistic peculiarities of the ST. Such a mission seems to be provided by translator if only the STT is applied.
Translation Tactics under the Strategy of Tertiary Translation
As implied by the communicative-functional approach to translation the STT like any other translation strategy is to be implemented by means of a set of translation tactics. A translation tactic is an organised combination of methods and operations undertaken by a translator to fulfill the goal of translation under the given translation strategy (Sdobnikov, p. 138). The number of tactics can vary depending on the strategy, the text and a number of specific tasks received by a translator during the translation brief. Given the communicative situation of specialised translation delineated by us with respect to the Turkish paper three translation tactics seem to be sufficient to fully demonstrate how the STT is effected:
- the tactic of rendering cognitive information
- the tactic of reproducing semantic structure of the text
- the tactic of reproducing syntactic-stylistic features of the text
The description of each of the tactics will be given on the basis of an excerpt of the chosen
Turkish text and its possible translation into Russian presented in the table below (Table 2).
Tactic of rendering cognitive information. This tactic is the least significant compared with other tactics in the given communicative situation of specialised translation. It is undertaken by a translator solely and exclusively because of its indispensability in giving sense to any text, especially to a specialised one. Although the cognitive information is the last thing the Russian linguist expects to be reproduced in the TT, its reproduction in it seems inevitable. It is obvious that were it not for the cognitive information the translation of the fragment (not to mention the whole paper) which is totally cognitive by nature would ever be possible.
Tactic of reproducing semantic structure of the text. To some extent this tactic corresponds to one of two modes of translation suggested by P. Newmark - semantic translation. It "tends to be more complex, more awkward, more detailed, more concentrated, and pursues the thought-processes rather than the intention of the transmitter" (Newmark, p. 39). It should be noted that this mode is chosen not merely because the ST might be considered as one of those texts proposed by P. Newmark, i.e. religious, philosophical, artistic and scientific where a culturally rather than general message is conveyed and the use of semantic method of translation seems more appropriate (Newmark, 2001). The choice is predominantly determined by the linguist-comparativist's goal of activity and expectations. In view of this, A. Chesterman's assertion made with regard to the semantic translation seems to be more pertinent than ever: "When you read a semantic translation, you probably realize at once that it is indeed a translation (and/or perhaps written by a non-native speaker). Some translations are indeed intended by the translator and the client to be recognized in this way" (Chesterman, Wagner, p. 50).
Table 2
3. Kültürler Arasi lleti$im ve £eviri
(I) Kültürler arasi iletisim, farkli kültürlere mensup insanlar arasinda etkilesim ve anlam aktarimlari, yabancinin algilanmasi, atiklanmasi ve kültürel farkliliklarin gözetilmesi gibi konulari inceleyen disiplinler arasi bir bilim dalidir (Kartari, 2001, s. 22). Ileti^im §ekli yüz yüze olabilecegi gibi ülke bazinda da olabilir. Qevirmenlerin konumlari geregi ileti^im uzmanlari olmalari gerekmektedir. (II) Zira "teviri iletisime dayali, iletisimi saglayan bir etkinlik olarak algilanir... ^evirinin oliisabilmesi itin önce iletisimin tamamen kopmasi ya da hit kurulamamasi gerekiyor" (Bahadir, 2008, s. 220). Kültürler arasiiletisimde yasanansorunlarin altinda Welsch'e (2002) göre, kültürlerarasilik kavraminin temelinde Herder'in kültür kavramini küre veya bagimsiz ada olarak tanimlayan geleneksel anlayis yatmaktadir. (II) Bu anlayiga göre her kültür kendini digerlerinden farkli olarak konumlandirdigindan, bu küreler veya adalar ancak birbirlerini iterler, farkli görürler, tanimazlar, yok sayarlar, yererler ve hatta birbirleriyle mücadele ederler. Welsch (2002) yan yana var olmaya fali^an kültürlerin ileti^im kuramama sebebinin yapilarindan kaynaklandigini söyler. (II) Buna kar$in Hansen kültürler arasi te$itli disiplinlerin var olus nedeninin bu yapisal iletisimsizlik oldugunu ve bunu te$itli yöntemlerle a$maya tahstiklarim söyler (2011, s. 279). Bunu bir fe§it sinerji olarak dü^ünmek mümkündür. Günümüzde küreselle^menin bir sonucu olarak ayni ülkede farkli kültürlerden, dillerden ve dinlerden insanlar bir arada ya^amakta ve devamli kültürler arasi ileti^imde bulunmaktadirlar.
(II) Vermeer teviriyi iletisimin özel bir türü olarak tanimlamaktadir (1990, s.40).
(II) Bugünün dünyasinda qeqitli alanlarda kültürler arasi iletisimin saglanabilmesi ifin her zamankinden daha fok feviriye ve profesyonel metinler üreten fevirmenlere ihtiyaf duyulmaktadir.
Yukarida da degindigimiz gibi kültür kavrami oldukfa farkli yorumlanabilmektedir.
(III) Kültür kavramini belirleyen; ortak bilgi dagarcigi, beklentiler, gelenek ve görenekler, dünya anlayislari, düsünme tarzi, toplumun deger yargilari gibi unsurlar, kültürün degisken ve manevi bir deger oldugunun göstergesidir. Zaman, mekan ve durum gibi faktörler algi ve anlayi§ üzerinde etkindir. Ancak kültürel altyapi sayesinde bir dili dogru ve etkin bir §ekilde kullanabiliriz. Kültürler arasi ileti^imde genellikle diger kültür hakkinda dogrulugu kesin olmayan, bazi kli§e önbilgiler ve kar^ilikli varsayimlardan hareket edilir. Iletisimin ba^arili olabilmesi bu varsayimlarin dogruluguna
Межкультурная коммуникация и перевод
(I) Межкультурная коммуникация - это междисциплинарная область знаний, изучающая такие вопросы, как взаимодействие и взаимопонимание между людьми разных культур, раскрытие и восприятие иностранца, а также наблюдение за культурными различиями. По примеру общения лицом к лицу коммуникация и на уровне государств может происходить. Установки переводчикам те же, что и к соответствующим специалистам в области коммуникации должны быть.
(II) Поскольку перевод понимается как деятельность основанная на коммуникации и обеспечивающая коммуникацию...Для того чтобы перевод состоялся, прежде всего необходимо, чтобы коммуникация полностью срывалась или же вовсе не строилась. В основе происходящих в межкультурной коммуникации проблем в фундаменте понятия интеркультуралима традиционное понимание культуры как сферы или независимого острова лежит. (II) Согласноэтомупониманиюпозиционируя себя как отличную от других эти культуры-сферы, или острова вступают в столкновение друг с другом, видят друг друга чуждыми, не распознают, не признают, высмеивают и даже вступают в борьбу друг с другом. Причины невозможности построения коммуникации между пытающимися сосуществовать друг рядом с другом культурами исходят из их структуры. (II) Несмотря на это главная причина появления разнообразных межкультурных дисциплин - структурное недопонимание и попытка с помощью различных способов его преодолеть. Это можно представить себе как некое взаимодействие. В наши дни одну из целей глобализации в обеспечении сожительства и по с то я нно й ко мму н икации меж ду людьми разных культур, языков и религий следует искать.
(II) Одним из видов коммуникации может рассматриваться перевод. (II) В сегодняшнем мире в различных областях для обеспечения межкультурной коммуникации как никогда в переводе и производящих профессиональные тексты переводчиках потребность ощущается. Как мы говорили выше, понятие культуры совершеннопо-разномуможетинтерпретироваться.
(III) Определяющие понятие культуры такие элементы как общее хранилище знаний, ожидания, традиции и обычаи, понимание мира, образ мышления, оценочное суждение общества, показателями культуры как
Table 2 (continue)
baglidir. Beklenmedik sözel veya beden dilsel bir davrani§, normlari zedeleyerek ileti^imin kopmasina ve hatta daha vahim sonuçlara neden olabilir. (II) Varsayimlar ve önbilgiler üzerine kurulmug beklenti ve anlama uzlagimlari iletigimin ontolojik dayanaklaridir. Çevirmen iletilmek istenen mesaji erek dilde dogru aktarabilmek için, kaynak metni öncelikle dogru yorumlayip dogru anlamalidir. Bunun için öncelikle metni, kaynak kültür okuru olarak, o kültürün §artlari içerisinde algilayip anlamalidir. Anlama süreci çeviri yapilan dilin özelliklerine gore dünya bilgisi, kültür bilgisi ve dil bilgisinin içigmda gerçekleçir. (I) Daha sonra kendini erek kültürdeki okurun yerine koyarak, metnin çevrilme amacina uygun bir gekilde, dogru anlagilmasi için eksik bilgiler varsa bunlari tespit ederek, gerekirse eklemeli; metnin içinde yazili olmayan, fakat bilindigi varsayilan bilgilere yapilan göndermeleri de dikkate alarak, kendinden yorum katmadan, metni erek okur için anlagilir hale getirmelidir... (Özbent, p. 17 - 18)
переменной и духовной ценности являются.
Такие факторы как время, место и ситуация для восприятия и понимания важны. Наиболее верно и эффективно мы можем использовать язык только на основании культуры. Во время межкультурной коммуникации обычно правда о другой культуре от некоторых неточных стандартных предположений и взаимных гипотез движется. Способность коммуникации быть успешной от точности этих предположений зависит. Неожиданное некое словесное или телесное поведение, нарушая нормы, может срыва коммуникации или еще более тяжелых последствий причиной стать. (II) На основе предположений и гипотез построенные ожидания и взаимопонимание - коммуникации онтологические опоры. Переводчик для того чтобы точно передать сообщение на языке цели прежде всего точно истолковав текст источника, должен точно его понять. Для этого он в первую очередь текст, как читатель культуры источника, в нем особенности той культуры восприняв, понять должен. Процесс понимания в соответствии с особенностями языка, на который осуществляется перевод, в свете познаний о мире, культуре и языке реализуется. (I) Затем, ставя себя на место читателя переводящей культуры, в соответствии с целью перевода текста неточные знания препятствующие верному пониманию находя при наличии, при необходимости внеся дополнения; в тексте не прописанные, однако подразумеваемые знания с имеющимися отсылками тоже принимая во внимание, свою собственную интерпретацию не привнося, должен для читателя перевода текст в доступную для понимания форму привести ...
Indeed, since no functional analogue of the ST is supposed to appear in the TL, the translator strives to reproduce the semantic-structural content of the original as closely as the TL norms will allow. Specifically, the operations undertaken by a translator may include (see the fragments in boldface type):
(I) omission of references in the parentheses. Constituting an integral part of any scientific paper and serving as a theoretical and substantiated basis for the author's research references would by no means be omitted if the TT was addressed to the relevant experts.
(II) integration of the quotations into the plain text;
(III) reproduction of the semantic meaning of the original lexical units and phrases;
Tactic of reproducing syntactic-stylistic features of the text. Like the previous tactic the essence of the tactic of reproducing syntactic features of the text, of course, can be explained from the perspective of the semantic mode of translation as well. It will be more exhibitory, however, to focus on it from the point of view of the so called documentary translation. First introduced by Ch. Nord it focuses on any of the features on each rank of the source text, pushing others into the background (Nord, p. 80). One of the various forms of this type of translation -
word-for-word translation - seems to provide the Russian linguist with all the data in addition to those that he/she gets thanks to the previous tactic, namely morphological, lexical and syntactic structures of the source language system (Nord, 2005). To reproduce these features in the TT the translator employs the following operations (see the fragments in italics):
(I) reproduction of the original syntactic structure;
(II) reproduction of the original stylistic features
Actually, the word-for-word translation might seem to provide the Russian linguist with the semantical-stylistic content of Turkish as it is rather than of its scientific functional style. Thus, by trying to mirror the syntactic structure of the original sentences in the TT the translator illustrates the usual word order in a sentence accepted in Turkish rather than the specificity of such structures in scientific Turkish. To place a predicate at the very end of a sentence is a normal way for a Turk to express his/her line of thought irrespective of the medium - oral or writing. Evidently, as witnessed by any of the fragments (see in spacing), it has nothing to do with any functional style of the Turkish language. Or, say, the translator's endeavour to search in the ST and convey in the TT such specific stylistic features as authorial speech, expressive and emotional-evaluative vocabulary, which by analogy with Russian are expected to appear in scientific Turkish is unlikely to be a success. The only seemingly appropriate mode of translation here which consists in choosing a lexical unit's most commonly used semantic meaning sometimes even taking it literally and not caring about the
context hardly ensures the desired effect. On the basis of the translation one could conclude that in comparison to Russian Turkish as a language is more monolithic, its functional styles are less specified and the attribution of a text to some style (for example, scientific) is determined by its subject-logical content rather than the semantical-stylistic one. This is the way the translator himself/ herself could perceive the TT through the eyes of the consumer. But he/she never knows in what way the TT will be perceived (consumed) by the Russian linguist, how much informative it will be to him/her in his/her research. Probably, it will not differ a lot from the said way of perception. At the same time it is quite possible that due to the arguably higher qualification in his/her activity the linguist will be able to find in the TT some vitally important points which might remain unnoticed or at least insignificant to recipients less qualified in the given matter (a translator among others). Regardless of how the TT will be used by its consumer in the end it is clear that the translator is definitely supposed to care about that point since it constitutes an indispensable part of the scope of translation.
Conclusion
The exemplified fragments have served to illustrate how this or that tactic is actually being applied only and do not intend that a translator would use a certain tactic in relation to each single fragment. As practice shows, tactics are never implemented by a translator separately but in a body which contributes to the specifics of the translation process in each of the cases. This is the point that a translator should always bear in mind.
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Перевод специального текста с позиции стратегии терциарного перевода
Р.М. Шамилов
Нижегородский государственный лингвистический университет им. Н.А. Добролюбова Россия, 603155, Нижний Новгород, ул. Большая Печерская, 36
Согласно коммуникативно-функциональному подходу к переводу всякий перевод выполняется с помощью определенной стратегии и комплексом тактик перевода. Выбирая подходящую стратегию, переводчик руководствуется целью перевода, определяемой на основе комплексного анализа коммуникативной ситуации специального перевода. Одна из таких стратегий - стратегия терциарного перевода. В настоящей статье на примере коммуникативной ситуации специального перевода, требующей применения стратегии терциарного перевода, предпринимается попытка установить набор переводческих тактик, гарантирующих успешную реализацию выбранной стратегии.
Ключевые слова: коммуникативная ситуация специального перевода, стратегия терциарного перевода, экстралингвистический контекст, тактики перевода.
Научная специальность: 10.00.00 - филологические науки.
