Conferences

CONTEXT IN TRANSLATION

УДК 81’25(045)

Ірина Свідер

(Кам’янець-Подільський національний університет імені Івана Огієнка)

CONTEXT IN TRANSLATION

У статті йдеться про вплив контексту на процес перекладу, виділяються та аналізуються основні складові тексту. Поняття контексту розглядається у співвідношенні із контекстом ситуації та контекстом культури.Автор визначає три складових компоненти контексту, які відіграють суттєву роль у процесі перекладу.

Ключові слова: контекст, переклад, ситуація, культура, комунікація.

The notion of context is principal to a variety of disciplines concerned with language use, including translation studies. Context is a highly complex notion, conceptualized in a variety of ways in different disciplines. It can be regarded as encompassing external (situational and cultural) factors and/or internal, cognitive factors, all of which can influence one another in acts of speaking and listening. In many approaches, context – and the relationship between context and language –is regarded as dynamic rather than static. The problem of context has been examined by various linguists. Among themE. Pause, E. Nida, F. Cusin-Berche, M. Baker and J. House,E-A. Gutt etc. All of them proposed different definitions and approaches to context.

  1. M. Baker states that “the notion of context has been extensively invoked but rarely critiqued and elaborated in the study of translation and interpreting” [3, p.321]. P. Virgilio points out “the dynamics of context in translation” and focuses on the need for context in a sense-for-sense translation as opposed to a word-for-word translation)[9, p.115-116], but he doesn’t give a proper definition of context.
  2. Dourish admits: “Context” is a slippery notion. Perhaps appropriately, it is a concept that keeps to the periphery, and slips away when one attempts to define it. The goal here has not been to define it, but rather to ask what “work” the term is doing as it is used in contemporary research in HCI [4, p.29].

As for the theory of context, we should mention E. A. Gutt, who supports the relevance theory, which comes from the pragmatics tradition and has been applied to translation. M. Baker classifies relevance theory as taking the cognitive construct side of her first major issue. Functional linguistics (J. House) could also have come from anthropology and is dealing with context as social interaction rather than cognition.

Taking into consideration the fact of ambiguity of term interpreting, we are going to make an attempt to both investigate context and describe its influence on translation. Translation theory provides higher-order considerations of language in use and text in context. It is not the static entity, but the wider environment which becomes the key factor to translation practice. H. Long points out that there are three constituent ingredients in the original text: context, form and style. These three are closely interrelated and inseparably interacting [5, p. 21-37].

The relation between content and form has been discussed by many scholars. Since translation involves two structures of languages, translators have to deal with the two entirely different forms on the one hand; on the other hand, they should not forget other features bound up with language of the translation, that is to say, the transmission of meaning in translation is determined by the differences of the two languages, the two authors, and two situations involved.

Style is a complex term under which all kinds of factors, such as textual and contextual are involved. Style mat be seen as the result of motivated choices made by text producers, and it is the different language usage in different situations by particular language users. To analyze different styles, the individual components must be analyzed, which together manifest a certain characteristics. As Levy remarks, “we have to deal with details which are often hardly perceivable, yet are none the less significant, since they inform us about the artistic type not by means of themes, composition, and transformation of reality, but by delicate stylistic nuances” [5, p.18].

More specifically, translation may deal with different types of works, for example, texts of economy, political essays, technical materials, legal documents and literary works, etc. the text type is at the center of contextual analysis. Translators cannot translate without the study of context, and the translation theory cannot be satisfactory without the analysis of text type[1].

It was B. Malinoswki, an anthropologist, who in 1923 first proposed the notions of Context of Situation and Context of Culture. He underlines the importance of context of situation: “Utterance and situation are bound up inextricably with each other and the context of situation is indispensable for the understanding of the words…a word without linguistic context is a mere figment and stands for nothing by itself, so in reality of a spoken living tongue, the utterance has meaning except in the context of situation”[6, p. 3].Thus, the meaning of language was interpreted in terms of context of culture and context of situation. Malinowski’s theories influenced linguists such as Firth (1957) and Halliday (1985) and language became to be considered meaningful only if considered within the language events in which it is used.

The common notion of “context” is viewed from two different perspectives: firstly, from the point of view of the immediate and specific material and social situation in which the text is being used, and secondly, from the perspective of the general “belief and value system”, or “cultural paradigm”, or ‘”ideology” in which it functions and with which it is aligned, or not. Culture can be also defined as “a set of interrelated semiotic (i.e., meaning) systems” [7, p. 2]. Culture frames our perception of reality and acts as a filter through which we see the world because the schemas that we use to interpret information evolve from the view of reality that society imposes on its members [2]. Culture is related to language and communication in that it brings our understanding of the world, codes and symbols into the communicative exchange [8].

Any text is therefore strictly related both to the immediate context enveloping it, i.e. the Context of Situation, and to the “outer” Context of Culture. In other words, any text is an expression of a specific situation and of a wider social, historical, political, ideological, etc. environment (See table 1).

Table 1. Text in Context

We are sure that a thorough and correct understanding of these three variables is fundamental for the translator. A translator who is capable of identifying these different dimensions and is able to reproduce them in a different language, the TL, is better able to offer a text which is “functionally equivalent” to the source one, even though the structures be different – because languages are different. In other words, we examine text within a socio-linguistically and contextually-oriented framework, where language is viewed as being embedded in culture, and where meanings can be properly understood only with reference to the cultural environment in which they are realized. When we translate the text, of any kind, be it literary or specialized, we move from the lexico-grammatical realizations to the identification of the meanings, realized in the text and in such a way we reconstruct the “context of situation” and “context of culture”, which activated such meanings and wordings, then we will also be able to translate it accordingly, taking into account both the source and the target contexts. Context and text are now increasingly viewed as more dynamically related, and the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic dimensions of communicative events are considered to be reflexive.

LITERATURE

  1. Alan K., Foster M. C. Context in translation: Definition, access and teamwork. Translation & Interpreting Vol 2, No 2 (2010). URL:https://trans-int.org/index.php/transint/article/view/87/70
  2. Alptekin C. Target-language culture in EFL materials. ELT Journal: English Language Teaching Journal.1993. 47(2), P. 136-142.
  3. Baker M. Contextualization in translator- and interpreter-mediated events. Journal of Pragmatics.2006. 38(3). P. 323-337.
  4. Dourish P. What we talk about when we talk about context. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing. 2004. 8(1). P. 19-30.
  5. Long Huang. Translatology. Jiangsu: Jiangsu Educational Publishing House.1987. P.18-37.
  6. Malinowski B. The problem of meaning in primitive language. Language and Literacy in Social Practice. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 1994. P. 1-10.
  7. Miller D.R. Language as Purposeful: Functional Varieties of Texts. Functional Grammar Studies for Non-Native Speakers of English. Bologna: Asterisco. URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44705923_Language_as_purposeful_functional_varieties_of_texts
  8. Ramirez E. S. Literature Review: The Intercultural Dimension. In The intercultural dimension in language classrooms in Aotearoa New Zealand: A comparative study. URL: https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/handle/2292/36877
  9. Virgilio, P. The sense of a beginning: The dynamics of context in translation. Meta:1984. 29(2).P. 114-127

 

Summary

The article deals with the influence of context on the process of translation, the main components of the text are emphasized and analyzed. The concept of context is considered in relation to the context of situation and context of culture. The author identifies three constituent components of the context that play a significant role in the translation process.

Keywords: context, translation, situation, culture, communication.