225 Karen Korning Zethn
Expressivity in Technical Texts
From a Translation Theoretical Perspective
1.Introduction
The aim of the thesis - which was defended on 9 January, 1998 - has been to provide linguistic evidence for the intuitive impression that many technical texts, instead of being almost exclusively informative, are meant to rve a va-riety of communicative purpos and that a multitude of stylistic expressive means are applied in order to get the intended messages through in the most effective way. Such evidence would have important conquences to the disci-pline of technical translation.
The intuitive claim is bad on three years of full-time translating - mainly of texts within the technical area - and will, I am sure, not come as a surpri to experienced translators working within that field. It is described in Chapters 1 and 2 how translation scholars on the other hand have generally been oc-cupied discussing various kinds of equivalence between the source text and the target text and tting up rigid text typologies. Typologies using Bühler’s lan-guage functions not to describe the various functi
ons of a text - as originally intended - but as a basis for text classification according to dominant function and by means of which the translator should be able to decide on a suitable translation strategy once a text had been placed in the typology. Translation scholars have mainly been interested in technical language from a termi-nological point of view. Textual strategies, textual meaning and expressivity (if existence was acknowledged at all) in technical texts were not considered relevant to the translator.提醒近义词
The explicit and especially implicit expressive elements are often disre-garded as a result of the traditional focussing on terminology within this area of translation. Conquently, the translation may be less effective/weaker than the original and in the worst ca only part of the message - the purely refer-ential one - is pasd on.
The approach of the thesis is that of a translation scholar, i.e. the starting point is the various interests and problems of the translator. As advocated by Snell-Hornby (1988) I favour an integrated approach to translation studies where translational rearch is not considered a sub-discipline of applied lin-guistics, but as a rearch area in its own right, using and contributing to results obtained within relevant areas such as linguistics, psychology and philosophy.
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2.Summary
Chapter 1ts out the translation theoretical standpoint of the thesis, namely that of the skopos theory1as oppod to the equivalence-bad approach to translation theory which prevailed in the 1960s and 70s2. The functional purpo of a given translation - instead of the purpo of the source text - is considered the basis for a sound translation strategy.黑兔和白兔
小米饼The chapter, furthermore, describes and evaluates Nord’s skopos-oriented approach to textual analysis. Her model of analysis (i.e. her parameters) may not deviate that much from other models; what is new and all-important is her view that textual analysis should be applied as a means of establishing the “function-in-culture” of a source text. This function must then be compared with the prospective function-in-culture of the target text in order for the translator to find out which source text elements have to be prerved, omitted or adapted in translation. In accordance with the skopos theory Nord thus es the source text as an extremely important basis for decisions regarding the translation of a given text, but not as the basis for an equivalent text in the target language.
With the emergence of the skopos theory it was finally possible to reject the concept of equivalence as a basis for determining translation strategies in favour of the fairly simple assumption that every tr
降血压药有哪些anslation has a skopos and that it is this skopos and not the source text which should lead the way to a suitable translation strategy at the macrolevel. The skopos theory does not, however, provide (and does not claim to provide) solutions at the microlevel. It is of cour possible to make certain generalisations about the microlevel, but eventually it is a question of context. Contrary to what is often believed of the skopos theory the source text is still considered very important as a tertium comparationis for possible omissions, additions or adaptations in the target text. What the skopos theory offers us is simply awareness of the function of the translation as intended by the initiator of the translation, i.e. in most cas the customer. The skopos theory is a theory, or rather an approach, which is relevant to the translation scholar and which matches the reality of the translation profession of today.
Chapter 2discuss the traditional view of the translation scholar - and the possible reasons for this view - on technical texts and conquently on tech-nical translation. The discussions of Chapter 2 are central to the main claim of the thesis that technical texts - like texts in general - rve various communica-tive purpos and are thus not only concerned with the transfer of facts. A pragmatic definition of a technical text en from the professional translator’s Vermeer 1989, Nord 1991 and 1997.
2See Snell-Hornby 1988.
227 point of view is provided. The traditional definition of a technical text as a text within a technical field containing specialid technical terminology is still considered valid, but the very narrow traditional characterisation of the typical technical text (informative function, prevailing syntactic features) is omitted and for prent purpos a technical text is defined as a text which is written within a technical subject area and which contains such a degree of specialid technical terminology that a technical translator is needed for its trans-lation.
The addition is justified by the fact that due to the technical element of so many texts to be translated today the technical translator is assigned a large number of texts dealing with technical subjects and containing technical termi-nology, but which are so heterogeneous in nature that classifying them as tech-nical texts and assigning them to the category of informative texts with a limit-ed number of stylistic conventions does not help the translator in the least when laying down a relevant translation strategy. The extention is not a help when trying to classify technical texts, but is necessary for pragmatic reasons.
Though it has been deemed necessary for prent purpos to define what is meant by a technical t
ext I generally do not consider a rigid definition of tech-nical texts to be of any u. All texts should first and foremost be considered texts - the fact that a text is written within a certain knowledge area may mean that it posss certain text type characteristics. However, this is only one im-portant piece of information among many factors relevant to the translator. As concluded in Chapter 2 texts containing technical language are of such a varied nature that translation-oriented text typologies can only be regarded as one tool among others when laying down a suitable skopos-oriented translation strategy.鬼才郭嘉
As pointed out by Newmark (1988:160) terminology only constitutes a mi-nor part of a technical text, “the rest is language”. LSP is deeply rooted in com-mon language. For this very reason the discipline of textual analysis is not only needed for non-LSP texts, but for all texts to be translated. Instead of the artifi-cial boundaries between various areas of translation, any text to be translated should be considered a communicative transaction, as stated by Hatim & Mason (1990:2), and focus should be on the intended function of that trans-action.
Finally, a text purpo model is prented outlining the non-referential purpos of technical company texts to be translated.
Chapter 3suggests that the non-referential purpos are often fairly subtle in technical texts and manifest themlves by means of expressive features. The purpos may be elicited by means of textual analysis and subquent contextual interpretation of the expressive features found. The informative and
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the expressive language functions are defined for prent purpos and it is pointed out that expressivity is not only found at the level of lexis, but also syntactic stylistic devices are potentially expressive. What is meant by ex-pressive features is explained and illustrations from a mini-corpus of technical texts are provided. One lexical expressive feature - that of isotopy - is dealt with in detail in the mantic analys of Chapter 9. Furthermore, it is em-phasid that it is the sum and interplay of the elements that carry the effect and that the expressive value of each element in isolation may be very insig-nificant and hard to determine. This is yet another argument for a textual approach to translation-oriented text analysis. It is, furthermore, acknowledged that there is a group of hard-core technical texts which are almost exclusively informative. This group is presumably not quantitatively very significant in view of the very competitive environment of the modern company.
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Finally, some of the aspects of lexical choice are discusd and the impor-tance of connotations for the elicitation of the non-referential meaning of a text is emphasid.
In Chapter 4we leave the area of technical texts for a while in order to ex-plain some of the central ideas and concepts of structuralism, especially the British branch, reprented by John Lyons. Lyons ( 1977) has shown how the arch for structure in language has resulted in certain patterns being discovered notably within the area of paradigmatic relationships. Patterns which are important for our understanding of the way the referential meaning of lexemes can only be determined by means of their n relations. It is ar-gued in Chapter 3 that a writer’s choice of lexis is central to the translator when trying to elicit the intention of a text which is why the domain of lexical -mantics is highly relevant to the thesis.
Chapter 5explains and criticis Trier’s structuralist field theory3. Contrary to the thoughts of Trier gaps and overlaps exist between fields, but though field theory may not hold as a general theory it does not detract from its descriptive value and, furthermore, there is some evidence that mantic fields constitute a psychological reality. Wittgenstein’s concept of “blurred edges” is intro-duced as central to the criticism of field theory. However, most fields have a relatively well-established nucleus on which there is general agreement. The study of fields is important to understand the lexical choic
es of a writer and thus his lexical strategies, however, the important factor (from a pragmatic point of view) of context - linguistic as well as extralinguistic - is not consid-ered by the field theory.蛋白高
Chapter 6discuss and criticis traditional componential analysis. Com-ponential analysis was developed in the post-Saussurean structuralist tradition Lyons 1977.
229 and has many affinities with field theory and in a way presuppos field theory though it was developed independently. In Chapter 6 the theory of prototypo-logy4is introduced as a feasible alternative to the rigid classical Aristotelian way of categorising on which some parts of field theory and componential analysis rest. Prototypology makes u of the notion of mantic components for the description of prototypical features, i.e. features which may but need not be there in order to include a particular lexeme in a mantic field. That is, prototype theory does not claim to be able to provide an exhaustive analysis of a lexeme by adding its mantic components, but rather a description of its prototypical features and thus helps us account for both typical features and fuzziness and borderline cas. Very important for the mantic analysis of Chapter 9 prototypology does not restrict itlf to inherent lexical features, but allows for contextual features as well. Thus, prototypology is a feasible alter-native to traditional componential analysis, especially as we cannot do without encyclopedic and contextual knowledge when analysing the meaning of real-life texts.
In Chapter 7the phenomenon of isotopy, i.e. a textual chain of lexemes sharing the same mes, is introduced. Isotopy is generally considered a cohe-sive device, but within translation theory it may be interesting as a tool for establishing the intention of a source text. Especially chains at the expressive level are interesting in the prent context as they may provide us with infor-mation about the more or less implicit objectives of a technical text. The nature of the analys require the inclusion of inherent as well as contextual mes and conquently the definition of isotopy must be extended accordingly. The principle of contradiction and the notions of analytic and synthetic proposi-tions are explained as they will be ud to distinguish between inherent and contextual mes.
Chapter 8is an introduction to the subquent analys. It makes a distinc-tion between cognitive, idiosyncratic meaning and shared lexical meaning, the latter making it feasible to embark upon a mantic description of lexemes. The chapter briefly suggests what happens in the mind of the reader when reading a text and how the mental reprentation of a subject may gradually be changed as attitudes are expresd by means of isotopic mes (or other ex-pressive elements) working together and building up a chain as the text pro-ceeds. The model of analysis is explained.
In order to provide linguistic evidence for the existence of expressivity in technical texts, “isotopic ch
ains” has been chon as a lexical expressive fea-ture of great importance when trying to elicit the intended meaning of a text. When trying to establish the isotopic chains of a technical text to be translated, Rosch 1973 and 1978 and Lakoff 1987.
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天狗食月we investigate the lexical choices - and their associated connotations - of the text. We could say that isotopic chains point at the skopos of the source text. A thorough mantic analysis of a technical text (from the Danish power station association ELSAM) is carried out in Chapter 9in arch for isotopic chains at the non-referential level of the text in question.
Chapter 10states and discuss the results of the analys. 17 features are ud to describe 51 lexemes in context and evidence has been found for the existence of the following intuitively postulated isotopic chains:
1.ELSAM is large and efficient
2.ELSAM cares about the environment
3.ELSAM is good at cooperating
4.ELSAM cares about the consumer
Each of the chains is reprented by 7 to 26 positive values and it applied to all four isotopic chains that positive values are prent for each isotopy in at least four (and up to eight) out of nine possible paragraphs.
On the basis of the above I can thus conclude that the analys support the main hypothesis of the thesis and contribute to the understanding of isotopy as a concrete phenomenon which can be analyd and pointed out in a text and of the fact that it is a crucial tool for the interpretation of a text.
Chapter 11provides a final conclusion to the thesis along with didactic and rearch perspectives.
3.Didactic Conquences
I consider the skopos theory a valuable starting point when trying to make stu-dents aware of the fact that most texts - be they LSP texts or non-LSP texts -are multifunctional, i.e. rve communicative purpos at the expressive as well as the informative level and that as far as possible all messages in a text relevant for the skopos of the target text must be rendered by the translator.
It ems fair to assume that the notion of isotopy, as narrowed down in the thesis, will reveal new aspects of a technical text to the recently graduated or student translator and will provide him with a new approach to the understand-ing of a text also at the expressive level. Isotopic chains, furthermore, empha-si the importance of working on a textual basis.
As to textual analysis it may em a tedious business to the student trans-lator, but it is imperative that he gain active knowledge about the subject in order to be able to draw on this knowledge as a professional translator. It has then hopefully become cond nature and only very difficult texts will need a more thorough analysis.
