Normalization in Translation


Book Description

Normalization in Translation: Corpus-based Diachronic Research into Twentieth-century English–Chinese Fictional Translation provides a comprehensive description of translation norms in two different historical contexts in twentieth-century China. Drawing on a corpus methodology, this book adopts a socio-historical approach to translation studies from a diachronic perspective, comparing translated and non-translated fictional texts from two historical periods to systematically explore the variation of normalization across time, and to highlight the social significance of translation activities by contextualizing the research results. The book includes detailed discussions of diachronic corpus construction, linguistic manifestations of normalization, changes in translation norms, and socio-cultural constraints for these changes. It expands the scope of previous studies and shows how translation studies can benefit from the use of a corpus methodology by providing an explanation, not simply a description, of how changes in translation behavior have come about. This book will be of interest to students on courses in translation and intercultural studies, as well as researchers interested in the areas of translation studies, corpus linguistics and contrastive studies of English and Chinese.




Normalization in Translation


Book Description

Normalization in Translation: Corpus-based Diachronic Research into Twentieth-century Englishâ "Chinese Fictional Translation provides a comprehensive description of translation norms in two different historical contexts in twentieth-century China. Drawing on a corpus methodology, this book adopts a socio-historical approach to translation studies from a diachronic perspective, comparing translated and non-translated fictional texts from two historical periods to systematically explore the variation of normalization across time, and to highlight the social significance of translation activities by contextualizing the research results. The book includes detailed discussions of diachronic corpus construction, linguistic manifestations of normalization, changes in translation norms, and socio-cultural constraints for these changes. It expands the scope of previous studies and shows how translation studies can benefit from the use of a corpus methodology by providing an explanation, not simply a description, of how changes in translation behavior have come about. This book will be of interest to students on courses in translation and intercultural studies, as well as researchers interested in the areas of translation studies, corpus linguistics and contrastive studies of English and Chinese.




Simplification, Explicitation and Normalization


Book Description

The search for general laws and regularities in Translation Studies gained new momentum in the 1990s when Baker (1993) promoted the use of large electronic corpora as research tools for exploring the linguistic features that render the language of translation different from the language of non-translated texts. By comparing a corpus of translated and non-translated English texts, Baker and her research team put forward the hypothesis that translated texts are characterized by some “universal features”, namely simplification, explicitation, normalization and levelling-out. The purpose of this study is to test whether simplification, explicitation and normalization apply to Italian translations of children’s books. In order to achieve this aim, a comparable corpus of translated and non-translated works of classic fiction for children has been collected and analysed using Corpus Linguistics tools and methodologies. The results show that, in the translational subcorpus, simplification, explicitation and normalization processes do not prevail over the non-translational one. Therefore, it is suggested that the status of translated children’s literature in the Italian literary “polysystem” (Even-Zohar, 1979, 1990) and, from a general viewpoint, all the cultural, historical and social conditions that influence translators’ activities, determine translation choices that can also tend towards processes different from those proposed by Baker.




Translation Universals


Book Description

Translation universals is one of the most intriguing and controversial topics in recent translation studies. Can we discover general laws of translation, independent of the particularities of individual translations? Research into this is new: serious empirical work only began in the late nineties. The present volume offers the state of the art on the issue. It includes theoretical discussion on alternative conceptualisations and new distinctions around the basic concepts. Several papers test hypotheses on universals in the light of recent work in different languages, and some suggest new ones emerging from empirical work over the last two to three years. The book contributes to the search for generalities in translation, the methodological solutions available, and presents emerging evidence on the kinds of regularities that large-scale research is bringing forth. On a more practical level, the applicability of the hypotheses and findings to translator education is, as always, a concern for translation studies.




Parallel Corpora for Contrastive and Translation Studies


Book Description

This volume assesses the state of the art of parallel corpus research as a whole, reporting on advances in both recent developments of parallel corpora – with some particular references to comparable corpora as well– and in ways of exploiting them for a variety of purposes. The first part of the book is devoted to new roles that parallel corpora can and should assume in translation studies and in contrastive linguistics, to the usefulness and usability of parallel corpora, and to advances in parallel corpus alignment, annotation and retrieval. There follows an up-to-date presentation of a number of parallel corpus projects currently being carried out in Europe, some of them multimodal, with certain chapters illustrating case studies developed on the basis of the corpora at hand. In most of these chapters, attention is paid to specific technical issues of corpus building. The third part of the book reflects on specific applications and on the creation of bilingual resources from parallel corpora. This volume will be welcomed by scholars, postgraduate and PhD students in the fields of contrastive linguistics, translation studies, lexicography, language teaching and learning, machine translation, and natural language processing.




Introducing Corpora in Translation Studies


Book Description

Written by Maeve Olohan, a leading name in the field, and offering a comprehensive account of the use of corpora by today's translators and researchers, this book is the definitive guide to a fast-developing area of study.




Empirical modelling of translation and interpreting


Book Description

Empirical research is carried out in a cyclic way: approaching a research area bottom-up, data lead to interpretations and ideally to the abstraction of laws, on the basis of which a theory can be derived. Deductive research is based on a theory, on the basis of which hypotheses can be formulated and tested against the background of empirical data. Looking at the state-of-the-art in translation studies, either theories as well as models are designed or empirical data are collected and interpreted. However, the final step is still lacking: so far, empirical data has not lead to the formulation of theories or models, whereas existing theories and models have not yet been comprehensively tested with empirical methods. This publication addresses these issues from several perspectives: multi-method product- as well as process-based research may gain insights into translation as well as interpreting phenomena. These phenomena may include cognitive and organizational processes, procedures and strategies, competence and performance, translation properties and universals, etc. Empirical findings about the deeper structures of translation and interpreting will reduce the gap between translation and interpreting practice and model and theory building. Furthermore, the availability of more large-scale empirical testing triggers the development of models and theories concerning translation and interpreting phenomena and behavior based on quantifiable, replicable and transparent data.




3D Shape Analysis


Book Description

An in-depth description of the state-of-the-art of 3D shape analysis techniques and their applications This book discusses the different topics that come under the title of "3D shape analysis". It covers the theoretical foundations and the major solutions that have been presented in the literature. It also establishes links between solutions proposed by different communities that studied 3D shape, such as mathematics and statistics, medical imaging, computer vision, and computer graphics. The first part of 3D Shape Analysis: Fundamentals, Theory, and Applications provides a review of the background concepts such as methods for the acquisition and representation of 3D geometries, and the fundamentals of geometry and topology. It specifically covers stereo matching, structured light, and intrinsic vs. extrinsic properties of shape. Parts 2 and 3 present a range of mathematical and algorithmic tools (which are used for e.g., global descriptors, keypoint detectors, local feature descriptors, and algorithms) that are commonly used for the detection, registration, recognition, classification, and retrieval of 3D objects. Both also place strong emphasis on recent techniques motivated by the spread of commodity devices for 3D acquisition. Part 4 demonstrates the use of these techniques in a selection of 3D shape analysis applications. It covers 3D face recognition, object recognition in 3D scenes, and 3D shape retrieval. It also discusses examples of semantic applications and cross domain 3D retrieval, i.e. how to retrieve 3D models using various types of modalities, e.g. sketches and/or images. The book concludes with a summary of the main ideas and discussions of the future trends. 3D Shape Analysis: Fundamentals, Theory, and Applications is an excellent reference for graduate students, researchers, and professionals in different fields of mathematics, computer science, and engineering. It is also ideal for courses in computer vision and computer graphics, as well as for those seeking 3D industrial/commercial solutions.




Translation Of Poetry And Poetic Prose, Proceedings Of The Nobel Symposium 110


Book Description

Translation is a very important tool in our multilingual world. Excellent translation is a sine qua non in the work of the Swedish Academy, responsible for the Nobel Prize in Literature. In order to establish a forum for discussing fundamental aspects of the translation of poetry and poetic prose, a Nobel Symposium on this subject was organized.The list of contributors includes Sture Allén, Jean Boase-Beier, Philippe Bouquet, Anders Cullhed, Gunnel Engwall, Eugene Eoyang, Efim Etkind, Inga-Stina Ewbank, Knut Faldbakken, Seamus Heaney, Lyn Hejinian, Bengt Jangfeldt, Francis R Jones, Elke Liebs, Gunilla Lindberg-Wada, Göran Malmqvist, Shimon Markish, Margaret Mitsutani, Judith Moffett, Mariya Novykova, Tim Parks, Ulla Roseen, Emmanuela Tandello, Eliot Weinberger, Daniel Weissbort, and Fran(oise Wuilmart.




Key Terms in Translation Studies


Book Description

Key Terms in Translation Studies gives a comprehensive overview of the concepts which students of translation studies are likely to encounter during their study, whether at undergraduate or postgraduate level. The book includes definitions of key terms within the discipline, as well as outlines of the work of key thinkers in the field, including Eugene A. Nida, Gideon Toury, Hans J. Vermeer, and Lawrence Venuti. The list of key readings is intended to direct students towards classic articles, as well providing a springboard to further study. Accessibly written, with complicated terms and concepts explained in an easy to understand way, Key Terms in Translation Studies is an essential resource for students.