Slide ENG3061 Translation Analysis and Assessment

Slide 1 ENG3061 Translation Analysis and Assessment U2 News Translation Assessment 1 Thu Ha Ngo Division of Translation and Interpreting House keeping  Question 1 Odd One Out 1 Cicero 2 St Jerome 3 Sanzang Fashi  Question 2 Fill in the blanks Things to nail today  Skopos Theory and Hans Vermeer  Functional Approach and News Translation The Functionalist Approaches  A shift from a linguistic oriented approach to a more socio cultural one  Translator = a profession; an expert of his own.

ENG3061 Translation Analysis and Assessment

U2 News Translation Assessment [1]

Thu Ha Ngo Division of Translation and Interpreting

 Question 2: Fill in the blanks

Things to nail today…

 Skopos Theory and Hans Vermeer

 Functional Approach and News Translation

The Functionalist Approaches

 A shift from a linguistic-oriented approach to a more socio-cultural one

 Translator = a profession; an expert of his own field

 No longer restricted to only literary and religious texts

Theory of Translational Action

 The 1980s: culture-centered translation (Bassnett 2002)

 Holz-Manttari 1986

 Disregard of the ST

Skopos = “aim”, “purpose”

 Hans Vermeer (1930-2010)

 German linguist and translation

scholar

 the University of Mainz

 Best known for “Skopos Theory”

 “[A] technical term for the aim

or purpose of a translation”

(Vermeer, 1989, p.227)

Five rules

 1) The final version of the TT is determined by its skopos

and the role it will play in the target culture.

 2) The role of the ST in the source culture may be

different to the role of the TT in the target culture

 3) The TT must take into account the receiver‟s situation and background knowledge – it must be “internally

 The relations between ST and TT as a consequence of

observing a skopos during the translation process

(Munday, 2001:80)

E.g.:

+ translation methods selection

+ text types of the translation

Adequacy vs Equivalence?

 The same ST can be translated in different ways

depending on its role and purpose in the target culture

 Only valid for non-literary texts

 Stylistically and semantically loose;

 Little attention to microlevel features in the TT

(Munday 2001:81)

Any translation is accepted; any criticism is dismissed AS LONG AS the final version of the TT satisfactorily fulfils the commission?

What actually constitutes translation?

 Peter Newmark‟s “essence of translation”

 Hans Vermeer‟s “translatum”

 Ambiguity in Translation

Activity 1

 Applying the Skopos Theory to

determine the translation strategies

of the following speeches.

 Pay attention to the requirement(s)

 „Bà mà bắt gặp mày giao du với thằng gù ở nhà ông bàPhán nữa thì tiên sư cha ba họ nhà mày sẽ chết với bà.‟

(trích trong Áo lụa Hà Đông (2006))

 If I ever see you with that hunchback servant again then damn/f***k your ancestors (to the third generation) I swear I‟ll beat you to death.

 Context: A group of American male high-schoolers are chatting in the back of the school bus

 “That doesn‟t exist,” somebody shouted behind him

 “It so fucking does,” Steve shouted back

“Drunken-monkey style, man, it‟s a real fucking thing You can kill somebody with it…”

 “You‟re full of shit.”

 “You‟re full of shit,” Steve said […]

(from Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell)

Activity 2

Apply Skopos Theory to assess the translations:

ST: “I cannot speak for the President’s schedule, but I know that

the President shares my deep commitment to deepening and strengthening our relationship between our two countries and also the importance of ASEAN.”

(response of the Secretary Hillary Clinton in the press conference in Washington, 1 Oct 2009

Source: website of US Department of State)

 “Tôi không thể nói thay lịch trình hoạt động của tổngthống, tuy nhiên chúng tôi chia sẻ cam kết phát triểnquan hệ giữa Hoa Kỳ với Việt Nam, và tầm quan trọngcủa khối Asean.”

(Source: BBC Vietnamese 2 Oct, 2009)

 “Tôi không thể nói về lịch trình làm việc của Tổng thốngObama, nhưng tôi biết rằng Tổng thống Obama cũng chia

sẻ cam kết mạnh mẽ về việc làm sâu rộng và tăng cườngmối quan hệ giữa hai nước, cũng như tầm quan trọng

của ASEAN.”

(Source: VnExpress, 3 Oct, 2009)

 “Tôi không thể nói thay lịch trình hoạt động của tổngthống, tuy nhiên chúng tôi chia sẻ cam kết phát triểnquan hệ giữa Hoa Kỳ với Việt Nam, và tầm quan trọngcủa khối Asean.”

(Source: BBC Vietnamese 2 Oct, 2009)

 ST: “The problem is that China has now committed herself,

publicly, to sovereignty of the South China Sea and to push that back, if only to the status of a claim that is not enforced,

is going to be very difficult.”

(comment by scholar Arthur Waldon of Pennsylvania University, AP 8 Aug, 2010)

TT: “Việc Trung Quốc tuyên bố chủ quyền đối với toàn bộbiển Đông sẽ ngày càng khó khăn hơn.”

(Source: VnExpress.net, 9 Aug, 2010)

 ST: “The problem is that China has now committed herself,

publicly, to sovereignty of the South China Sea and to push that back, if only to the status of a claim that is not enforced,

is going to be very difficult.”

(comment by scholar Arthur Waldon of Pennsylvania University, AP 8 Aug, 2010)

TT: “Việc Trung Quốc tuyên bố chủ quyền đối với

toàn bộ biển Đông sẽ ngày càng khó khăn hơn.”

(Source: VnExpress.net, 9 Aug, 2010)

Skopos Theory and

News translation

 Translating news = transferring from the way of writing news in SL to that in TL

 Each paper has its own targeted readership

One piece of information = different presentations

A variety of translatum

Bio Break

Activity 3

 Comment on the translation (and perhaps, the translator(s)) applying the Skopos Theory

 When Duong was 10, her rambling French colonial family home in the centre of Hanoi was confiscated by the government "They accused us of being capitalists because we had a big house We were thrown on to the streets." Four years later, in 1988, their situation was so unbearable that Duong and her father, a former Vietnam People's Army soldier,

joined the ranks of so-called boat people trying their luck at a better life elsewhere "We paid a fortune for places on a fishing boat to sail to Hong Kong The boat's capacity was 20 people and there were 72 of us packed on board We didn't know if we'd live or die."

Storms and piracy were terrifying hazards: a boat that left at the same time as theirs didn't make it, Duong says […]

 Still, they arrived in Hong Kong too late Official resettlement programmes for Vietnamese refugees had already ended Duong and her father spent the next five years there living in limbo in a barbed-wire compound "It was like a prison," she says "There was no privacy, and at shower time we were hosed down with disinfectant like pigs." Unable to prove they were political asylum seekers, they eventually returned to Vietnam when she was 19.

(excerpt from From war babies to billionaires: Vietnam's wealthiest women by Abigail

Haworth on The Guardian UK, 24.03.2013)

 Thuộc thế hệ 7X, Alan Dương cũng đã trải qua những

ngày khói đạn của chiến tranh Việt Nam Cha cô cũng

từng tham gia vào Lực lượng Quân đội Nhân dân Việt Nam Bản thân cô cũng hiểu nỗi thống khổ của người

dân Việt sống trong cảnh mưa bom đạn, cái chết rập

rình.

 Tuy nhiên, năm 14 tuổi, Alan Dương may mắn được ra nước ngoài học và trở về nước ở tuổi đôi mươi với khả năng tiếng Anh nổi trội Alan Dương đã làm việc cho một công ty động sản tại Hà Nội với công việc chính là tư vấn nhà ở cho khách hàng người nước ngoài.

(Trích từ Báo Anh ca ngợi ba nữ tỷ phú giàu nhất Việt Nam đăng

trên Tienphong.vn, ngày 25.3.2013)

 Skopos Theory and Code of Ethics

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art20131010112740749

1202144618106

 ngon-ngu-bao-chi-cac.html