Translating Specialised Texts
This chapter illustrates the preparatory phase of the translation task, where the translator pre-reads the source text to identify translation problems in light of the specific conditions in which the translation activity takes place. Based on the two mai
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This long chapter deals with the first and second phases of the translation process. It examines both the mental activity of the translator in carrying out a translation task within the specific communicative situation in which it takes place (translation process), and the translator’s choices resulting in the text from her activity (translation product). The third and final phase of the translation process, i.e. revision, will be dealt with in the next chapter (Sect. 4.4). The first part of this chapter (3.1) will focus on the preparatory phase of the translation task, where the translator identifies the ST translation problems in light of the specific conditions in which the translation activity takes place, and chooses a macrostrategy that will guide her in all the choices at the lower levels of the text. Without going into great material detail (cf. Gouadec 2010: 59–75), I will concentrate firstly on the specific type of pre-reading of the ST which should be performed by the translator (3.1.1), and then on the parameters that are relevant for her choice of a macrostrategy aimed at achieving a pragmatically successful translation. For the sake of simplicity, I have grouped these parameters under the two very general headings of “Intertextuality” (3.1.2) and “Intended use of the translation” (3.1.3). Intertextuality is a textual parameter that refers © The Author(s) 2020 F. Scarpa, Research and Professional Practice in Specialised Translation, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51967-2_3
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to both the text type/genre of the text to be translated and the conventionalised text models in the TL the translator should adhere to (text- normative equivalence), whilst the intended use that the translation will be put to in the TL is a pragmatic parameter that refers to the appropriateness of the TT in its new communicative situation. The second and main part of the chapter (3.2) will be devoted to the second phase of the translation process, i.e. the operational phase of the actual production of the translation consisting in the reformulation of the ST into the TL. In this phase, the translator selects the strategies to solve in the TT the translation problems identified in the ST, taking into account the commissioner’s instructions concerning the intended use of the translation. ‘Strategies’ is a general term referring to the translator’s practical choices designed to solve translation problems and produce a translation that is both pragmatically equivalent to the ST and conforms to the professional norms of language use characterising the TT genre. Besides the general translation approach for the whole text which I have called ‘macrostrategy’, I distinguish the lower-level strategies that descend from such a guiding principle into the two main translation methods of ‘literal translation’ and ‘paraphrase’ (3.2.1), and also, with a top-down procedure, make a further distinction between textual strategies (3.2.2), syntactic strategies (3.2.3) and lexi
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