Table of Contents
5-24
Michaela Martinková and Markéta Janebová: Wordplay Based on Lexical Ambiguity in the British Sitcom Yes Minister and its Czech Translations
Abstract
This paper compares English puns exploiting polysemy and homonymy in the Yes Minister series and their translations into Czech. The aim of the study is twofold: first, to investigate the basic principles of language these puns rely on, and second, to systematically analyse the ways these puns are rendered into a language that is typologically different from English. The mechanism involved here is frame-shifting (Coulson et al., 2006): a cue in the context forces the reader to abandon a frame originally activated in the disambiguating process and to retrieve another, often
incompatible, frame. Though, arguably, this mechanism works for Czech as it does for English, the arbitrariness of the relation between the form and the meaning of a linguistic item is likely to make it difficult “to pun on the same item in two different languages” (Chiaro, 2010, p. 8). In our data, this applies to homonymy and polysemy alike.
Keywords
frame, Frame Semantics, frame-shifting, ambiguity, homonymy, polysemy, polysemioticity, (audiovisual) translation, connector, disjunctor, relexicalization, reconstruction, idiom, pun, wordplay
25-38
Cristina Álvaro Aranda and Raquel Lázaro Gutiérrez: Small Talk as a Communicative Resource in Monolingual and Interpreted Medical Consultations: A Comparative Analysis
Abstract
Small talk used to be considered as a peripheral resource within interactions. However, subsequent contributions discard these ideas and grant small talk a particular value that goes beyond casual
contexts, since it allows interpersonal relationships to be established among participants, which later on can help to facilitate specific tasks being performed in the workplace. In medical contexts, small talk enables to carry out essential tasks, such as building a therapeutic relationship. However, the coexistence of several ethnic populations within Spain’s geography demonstrates that patients and doctors do not always share the same language or cultural background. In this first stage of our ongoing research, we will examine real recordings of medical consultations, which are classified into the three groups and will be compared: (a) monolingual consultations, (b) monolingual consultations with a foreign patient and (c) interpreter mediated consultations. We will perform a quantitative and qualitative analysis for each of our groups of study, which will allow us to observe the distribution of small talk in different phases of the medical interview, its purposes and the most recurrent topics.
Keywords
small talk, intercultural communication, healthcare, monolingual and interpreted medical consultations
39-50
Ieva Vizule: Maturation of Translation Student Capabilities through Understanding Cognitive Processes in Writing
Abstract
The article presents findings of an empirical research into how cognitive skills required in the process of translating can be developed through writing and understanding cognitive processes in writing. Its underlying theories – Polanyi’s theory of tacit knowing and a cognitive process theory of writing developed by Flower and Hayes – explain why cognitive skills benefit from writing and what the preconditions for cognitive capability development are. The research findings brought the article to focus on two valuable cognitive processes in writing, namely, text organizing and goal setting, and on the cognitive processes that ensure learning and mean learning. The article attempts to demonstrate how seemingly basic writing assignments – if structured and combined with metacognitive activities – help translation students, first, discover their aptitudes and then develop some core, translating-related skills, tacit technical and tacit cognitive.
Keywords
writing, translating, tacit knowledge/knowing, cognitive skills/capabilities and processes, metacognition, capability maturation
51-62
Josefína Zubáková: Sociological Approaches in Translation Studies: An Overview
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of sociological approaches to translation within
the Western translation tradition. The sociological turn in Translation Studies and the sociology of translation are discussed along with the critical objections to the use of sociological methods in Translation Studies. The concept of “open structure” is explored with reference to the Czech and Slovak translation traditions. Finally, as a means of narrowing the scope, studies employing sociological approaches in drama and theatre translation research are introduced and assessed critically.
Keywords
sociological approaches in Translation Studies, sociological turn, sociology of translation, Czech
and Slovak translation traditions, drama translation
63-78
Ondřej Molnár: Translation Quality Assessment
Abstract
There is no doubt that translation quality assessment (TQA) represents a significant research area at present. Translation quality has always been, however, a controversial issue, which has brought about division rather than unity between translation scholars. Bowker (2000, p. 183) states that “evaluation is one of the most problematic areas of translation.” Moreover, it is not a topic which reverberates only in the world of academia. Quite the opposite. The issue of translation quality and evaluation has also been gaining importance in professional and commercial settings. Given its growing importance in today’s globalized world and given the impact that translation has had on cultures and language communities, it comes as no surprise that Chesterman (quoted in Zehnalová
[2013, p. 15]) has singled out translation quality as one of the main areas of current and further research. Thus, the objective of the present paper is to embrace the topic of translation evaluation, with a particular focus on the recent development of this research area, zooming in on Juliane House’s model of TQA and her view of translation as re-contextualization.
Keywords
translation quality assessment
79-86
Tomasz Korybski: Speech-to-text Technology as a Tool for Assessing and Improving the Quality of Interpretation
Abstract
This article offers some preliminary findings concerning the use of speech-to-text technology (hereafter STT) as a tool be used in training for simultaneous interpreters. The article presents a set of practical exercises designed around speech-to-text solutions to facilitate more precise feedback which does not require the instructor to rely solely on their notes. Moreover, based on a pilot study on the practical application and assessment of STT at an academic setting conducted in 2016 and 2017, I present students’ reactions to the exercises and STT as a didactic tool in simultaneous interpretation workshops. I also indicate some possible research avenues for further studies in the didactics of interpretation involving STT.
Keywords
interpreter training,speech-to-text, speech recognition, interpretation quality, assessment of interpretation quality
87-106
Ondřej Klabal: Quality Assurance in Translating National Legislation: The Case of Czech Companies and Cooperatives Act
Abstract
This paper presents a study into quality assurance applied to the translation of Czech legislation into English for documentary purposes. The qualitative methodology applied aims at exploring quality assurance on two levels: on the part of the contracting authority awarding the translation public contract and on the part of the successful bidder. In the former case, the quality assurance is explored through comparison of the tender requirements (which in fact constitute a translation
brief) with those identified to be included in a legal translation brief by Scott (2015). In the latter case, a legal-translation quality assessment model by Prieto Ramos (2014) is used to analyse the quality of the English translation of the Companies and Cooperatives Act in various categories. The results of the analysis are then categorized and discussed in terms of their possible (not only) legal implications. The whole paper is framed in a risk analysis model developed for translation by Canfora and Ottmann (2016) to discuss the risks involved in translation of legislation.
Keywords
legal translation, translation quality assurance, translation of legislation, Companies and Cooperatives Act
107-116
Vivian Lee: Connotations Embodied within Language and Culture: A Look at Culture-specific Lexis and its Translation
Abstract
This study presents data from a study which involved the translation of culture-specific lexis (CSL). A study was conducted on two groups of 10 students at a university in Seoul, South Korea. Five translation classes were provided for each group. Presenting qualitative excerpts from the data, the study looks at students’ considerations of word connotation and culture-specific
concepts, and the translation decisions made based on these considerations. Results show that the translation of CSL can direct students’ attention to perceptions, emotions, attitude, and values conveyed by a word, in addition to its referential meaning, thus strengthening their roles as mediators between cultures.
Keywords
culture-specific lexis, connotations, source text culture, target text culture, translation
117-142
Ludmila Veselovská: Comparing Wh Movement in English and Czech
Abstract
This study compares Wh Movement in English and Czech, concentrating on (in)direct wh-questions.
It demonstrates that Wh Movement exists in both languages, and within the local domain, its properties are fully comparable. The main distinctions concern two aspects. First, as for extraction domains, Czech tolerates a violation of the Left Branch Constraint while English tolerates preposition stranding. Second, contrary to English, Czech avoids long distance movement and allows multiple wh-elements fronted. The lack of Superiority Effect, That-trace Effect and Doubly Filled
Complementizer Constraint suggest that apart from [+wh] there is also a syntactically active Focus feature involved in Czech.
Keywords
Czech wh-questions, English wh-questions, Left Branch Constraint, multiple Wh Movement, Superiority Effect
143-158
Filip Krajník: Translating the Translator: On Rendering Chaucer’s The Parliament of Fowls into Modern Languages
Abstract
This study considers one of the most celebrated short poems by Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parliament of Fowls(c. 1382), and its recent translations into Spanish (one by Luis Costa Palacios, 1982; another by Jesús L. Serrano Reyes, 2005), Italian (by Vincenzo La Gioia, 2000), Russian (by Sergei A. Alexandrovsky, 2005), and Polish (by Marcin Ciura, 2013), trying to determine various strategies
which modern translators have employed when dealing with a work that itself is a partial translation and belongs to a larger family of texts, within which it was originally meant to be understood. The paper indicates that there is no clear consensus among contemporary translators when working with medieval intertextuality and that each of the versions offers a highly individual reading, depending on a number of factors, such as the translator’s erudition, his or her own preferences, or the form in which the target text should be presented to the intended audiences.
Keywords
literary translation, translation of poetry, medieval poetry, Geoffrey Chaucer, Parliament of Fowls
159-168
Anna Mikyšková: Translation as a Means of Dramatic Exchange: St Dorothy’s Play in the 17th Century
Abstract
The topic of the paper is the phenomenon of English itinerant players who travelled across the
European continent at the end of the 16th and during the 17th centuries. Especially in the lands
of the Holy Roman Empire, the Englishmen enjoyed an enthusiastic reception at court as well as in public. Even though the Englishmen’s merit consisted mainly in the enrichment of German theatrical practice, the medium of dramatic translation also contributed to the dissemination of new motifs and ideas from London as German translations of English plays were soon produced. This paper discusses one such instance of early modern drama translation, namely Johann Georg Gettner’s play Die Heylige Martyrin Dorothea (1691?), which is a remarkably faithful, if shortened German translation of Phillip Massinger and Thomas Dekker’s Jacobean play The Virgin Martyr (1620). Gettner’s translation represents an interesting link between English Renaissance drama and its later German Baroque counterpart.
Keywords
drama translation, St Dorothy, English comedians, German, intercultural exchange