THE CURRENTTREND IN TRANSLATION

Efforts to improve machine translation services have marked the last past decades, since the first patents
were registered in the 1930s.

However, regardless of how much both machine translation and translation tools have improved and thus
made the worldwide communication easier, they still cannot replace human translation in many ways.

There is a deep language understanding, not only grammatically but also semantically, linguistically, and
culturally, that belongs to human speakers and can be hardly achieved by a machine’s binary system.

WHAT ISA TEXT?

• In linguistics, the term “text” refers to:

• a) The original words of something written, printed, or spoken, in contrast to a Summary or paraphrase;

• b) A coherent stretch of language that may be regarded as an object of critical Analysis.

• c) In the 1980s Brown & Yule defined a text as “[…] a verbal record of a Communicative event”

READING

• reading the original text is the first step in the translation process.

• This is called reading for translation.

• Reading skills and awareness of reading strategies are equally essential for translators as they are for
language teachers, who are expected to guide language students in Developing these skills.

• A well-developed reading strategy awareness and good reading comprehension skills in English strongly
influence the ability to translate texts from the source language to the Target language.

READING TECHNIQUES

• Skimming and scanning are reading techniques that use rapid eye movement and keywords to move
quickly through text for slightly different purposes.

• Skimming is reading rapidly in order to get a general overview of the material.

• Scanning is reading rapidly in order to find specific facts, and to answer questions requiring factual
support.

PRE-TRANSLATIONTEXTANALYSIS (PTA)

Viewing from different angles most scholars suggest that Pre-translation Text Analysis (PTA) should consist
of mainly the following activities:

• 1) considering factors external to the linguistic text;

• 2) establishing the style and genre of the text;

• 3) designating the type of the information represented in the text.

DO YOU REMEMBER HOWWE DEFINED «A TEXT»?

• a) The original words of something written, printed, or spoken, in contrast To a summary or paraphrase;

• b) A coherent stretch of language that may be regarded as an object of critical Analysis.

• c) A text was defined as “[…] a verbal record of a communicative event” by Brown & Yule

PRE-TRANSLATION TEXT ANALYSIS (PTA)

All the existing models of PTA illustrate

• 1) textocentric (linguistic);

• 2) functional;

• Though the approaches are called textocentric and functional, they should not be considered as
contradicting each other, they simply focus on different features.

• 3) communicative approaches to this process.

MAIN FEATURES IN PTA

• Type of text

• Genre

• Register

• Style Register according to Halliday

• Field

MAIN FEATURES IN PTAREGISTER

• We should notice the difference between a high and low level of formality.

• It is important to identify the typical conventions of the type of communication in question (register of
science, news reporting, etc.)

• We should also pay attention to the set of choices determined by features of the situation in which a
given register is used

REGISTERACCORDINGTO M.A.K.HALLIDAY

• Field (the what and why of communication)

• Tenor* (the who of communication; i.e. the relationship between the speaker and the listener and the
writer and the reader).

• Mode (the how of communication; the textual features which realise the features of the situation).

• * “the general meaning, character, or pattern of something”

PTA TEXT 1D -TRANSLATIONTIPS

-Pay attention to the word order

COMMUNICATIVEAPPROACHTO TRANSLATION ACCORDINGTO ALEXEEVA

• The first step of the analysis is the accumulation of external information about the addresser, the time of
creating the text, the canal of delivering it, the addresser of the original and target texts, their
communicative task.

• The second, and one of the most important further steps, regards establishing the communicative task of
the source text itself. Alexeeva (2011) also considers designating the genre and type of the text important.

• The communicative approach to translation seems more relevant than the linguistic and functional
approaches, because it demonstrates equal interest in linguistic and extra-linguistic factors.

• No doubt that it’s judging by the vocabulary, grammatical structures used in the text, genre and style of
the text that we can designate the communicative task and author’s intention in order to expressthem
adequately by means of the target language.

TRANSLATION TIPS TO BOOST CONTENT QUALITY -1

• 1. GET THE GRAMMAR APPS AND TOOLS

• 2. APPLY TO THE COMMON PRACTICES

• 3. FOLLOW THE RULE: THE WINNER IS THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE

• 4. REREAD TEXT A FEW TIMES

• 5. COMPARE BOTH TEXT

• 6. CHECK AND EDIT YOUR OWN WORK

• 7. PAY ATTENTION TO THE ROOT WORDS & ‘FALSE FRIENDS OF THE TRANSLATOR’

• 8. FOCUS ON TRANSLATION ACCURACY & LITERACY

• 9. DO NOT FALL INTO THE “TRAP OF PREPOSITIONS”