DiSUm, a.a.

2019–20, Scienze e lingue per la comunicazione (L20)

Lingua e comunicazione inglese 1, prof. Iain Halliday
Lezione giovedì 28 novembre 2019 (17 di 27), aula A1, ore 08:00–10:00

almost the same thing

(towards translation)

In this class we will take a look at two translation exercises, one from English
to Italian and one from Italian to English. Both will give us an opportunity to
discuss and contrast the two languages. From this point of view translation as
an activity certainly provides an opportunity to increase our awareness of the
English and Italian languages in particular, and language in general. At the
end of this text I’ve also prepared “definitive” translations of the two texts.
The following two paragraphs are extracts from The Guardian’s football pages
back in April 2011 (the quotation in the second paragraph is from Manchester
City’s goalkeeper, Joe Hart):

As a rule, successful teams do not throw punches at each other. But as

Manchester City near their first FA Cup final for 30 years, you could measure
out their season in bust-ups.
Most of the lenses are pointed at the tall, slim, often uncertain figure of
Balotelli, the boy José Mourinho could not control at Internazionale, the
archetypal footballer as soap opera star. “I have a lot of time for Mario,” said
Hart. “I think people forget he is 20 years of age and has an awful lot on his
plate.”

Evidently as you read the language here you will find yourself wondering
about some lexical elements and your first port of call in answering your
questions will probably be a dictionary. If you turn to a bilingual dictionary
you will probably find suitable Italian synonyms, but the problem with
bilingual dictionaries is that the dictionary itself cannot take into
consideration the context in which you are reading. Much more effective is to
use your knowledge of the context and to consult a monolingual dictionary,
thus helping yourself not only to produce an effective translation, but also
forcing yourself to work in English to resolve the problem.

Here, instead, in this brief text (a standfirst from the football pages of La
Repubblica, again April 2011), we will be working in the other direction, from
Italian into English. Obviously, for you as native speakers of Italian, your
understanding of the text will be less problematic than understanding the
English text, but expressing yourselves in English will cause greater problems.
This is obviously a greater challenge, but the end result, precisely because it
requires greater effort on your part working in English, will be more
beneficial for you in improving your command of the language:

Basta parolacce e bravate

Lo sponsor molla Rooney
Ufficialmente il contratto tra il giocatore del Manchester United e la Coca-Cola
è scaduto e non sarà rinnovato, ma la goccia che ha fatto traboccare il vaso
sono state le volgarità gridate contro la telecamera dopo la tripletta in
Premier. Wayne perderà 720 mila euro l'anno

Here your first port of call may necessarily be a bilingual dictionary, not only
because you will probably have difficulty in finding synonyms in English, but
also because in the two title lines, due to space considerations, you will not be
able to use periphrasis. There are also at least two pieces of colloquial
language in the extract: mollare with the meaning of “to abandon” and la
goccia che ha fatto traboccare il vaso, a figurative expression with the
meaning of “an action in itself apparently insignificant that precipitates a
crisis”. Oh … and a piece of football jargon, tripletta.

In her book, In Other Words: a coursebook on translation, Mona Baker

provides her readers with material on translation that is both theoretical and
practical. At least four chapters of the book (the last four chapters) are
specifically dedicated to matters that regard discourse, or text linguistics, the
significance of texts beyond the level of words and sentences. Those chapters
carry the titles, “Textual equivalence: thematic and information structures”
(5); “Textual equivalence: cohesion” (6); “Pragmatic equivalence” (7);
“Beyond equivalence: ethics and morality” (8). So you can see that while
Tuesday’s class on discourse may have seemed excessive because discourse as
a field of study doesn’t figure in the syllabus for your first-year reading of
English Language, in fact the part of your syllabus that regards translation
does require some consideration of this element of linguistic study.
The first chapter of Baker’s book is an introduction, which we will look at in
some depth in our next class tomorrow, while the following three regard
language and translation at the micro-level that comes before discourse:
“Equivalence at word level” (2); “Equivalence above word level” (3);
“Grammatical equivalence” (4).

Testo n. 1, traduzione “definitiva”

Di solito i giocatori delle squadre di successo non si prendono a pugni. Ma

mentre il Manchester City si avvicina alla sua prima finale di FA Cup in 30
anni, si potrebbe misurare la sua stagione per mezzo del numero di tafferugli.

La maggior parte delle fotocamere è puntata alla figura alta, snella, spesso
incerta di Balotelli, il ragazzo che José Mourinho non poteva governare ad
Inter, l’archetipo di calciatore come diva delle telenovele. Hart ha detto,
“Stimo Mario molto. Penso che le persone tendono a dimenticare che ha
vent’anni e ha veramente molto da gestire.”

Testo n. 2, traduzione “definitiva”

Enough swearing and stunts

Sponsor abandons Rooney

Officially the contract between the Manchester United player and Coca-Cola
has expired and won’t be renewed, but the straw that broke the camel’s back
was the foul language shouted at the television cameras following his hat-
trick in the Premier League. Wayne will lose 720 thousand euros per annum.