School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications
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ItemTranslators as breakers of norms?(John Benjamins, 1995)
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ItemTranslation Error Analysis and the Interface with Language Teaching(John Benjamins, 1992)
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ItemIn Search of a New Rationale for the Prose Translation Class at University Level(Brussels Translation School, 1992)In view of labour-market demands, greater flexibility is required of translators. This includes active translational competence in their foreign language(s), especially in domains where oral communication is more important than written communication. The present study investigates how to give a new rationale to prose translation classes, in the wake of a long-standing tradition whereby prose translation was given an ancillary status as a didactic means in foreign-language teaching. The increasing presence of foreign exchange students in translation classes creates an excellent opportunity to increase the importance of A-B directionality. The prose class (thème, traducción inversa, Hinübersetzung) is ostensibly involved with teaching translation from the students’ mother language to the students’ second language (A-B). However, it has traditionally been little more than a rather laborious way of checking on B language acquisition, surviving as a relic from the days when translation was itself taught as little more than a mode of language learning. This traditional background creates serious problems when, as in Spain, prose classes exist in specialist translation institutes at university level. Although the old model would appear to be no longer valid (since translation students are now supposed to learn translation, not just languages), little thought has been given to the development of a new rationale. Indeed, most contemporary theories talk about translation as if directionality were not important; even theoretically developed syllabus projects like that of Amman & Vermeer (1990) give scant attention to directionality, preferring instead to consider “the translational problems of language pairs” where exercises are presumably to be carried out indifferently both to and from the mother language. This indifference on the level of theory might itself indicate the demise of the traditional rationale. But it leaves three very basic questions unresolved: [74] 1. Should one conclude that the prose class within the university translation institute has permanently lost its traditional specificity? 2. What relation might such classes have to the professional practice of trained translators? 3. Is there any correlation or contradiction between these two aspects? If a new rationale is possible, it will depend on coherent answers to all three questions.
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ItemQüestionement de la traducció del mite(Noesis Foundation, 1990)
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ItemShortcomings in the historiography of translation(John Benjamins Publishing, 1992)A l'heure où les relations internationales subissent de profonds changements, l'historiographie de la traduction réveille un nouvel intérêt. Or, les méthodes qu'elle utilise sont-elles à la hauteur des circonstances? Nous voudrions, dans cet article, formuler une hypothèse sur l'effet historique des traductions, non pas pour la justifier empiriquement mais afin de voir comment certaines approches contemporaines pourraient la vérifier. Nous constatons que, du point de vue de notre hypothèse, ces approches comportent sept inconvénients méthodologiques: a) l'accumulation archéologique de données qui ne répondent à aucune problématique explicite, b) la dépendance générale du matériau anecdotique, c) la périodisation indiscriminée, d) les traductions vues comme expressions plutôt que comme facteurs de changements historiques, e) le privilège axiomatique accordé aux cultures cibles, f) des hypothèses infalsifiables, g) peu d'espace systémique pour l'interculturalité du traducteur.