2.

1 Monolingual communication

In a large sense, the translator is identified with any communicator (whether listeners or
readers, monolinguals or bilinguals) as they receive signals containing messages encoded.
The translator is a” bilingual mediating agent between monolingual communication
participants in two different language communities.”(House, 1977) i.e. the translator
decodes messages transmitted in one language and re-encodes them in another.
To better understand this principle, it is useful if not necessary to examine the following
diagrams:

code

channel signal channel

sender (message) receiver

content

The sender selects the message and the code, encodes the message, selects the channel of
communication and transmits the signal containing the message. The receiver receives
the signal containing the message, recognizes the code, decodes the signal and finally
retrieves and comprehends the message.

2.2. Bilingual communication (mediated by the translator):

code

channel signal 1 channel

Sender (message) Translator

content 1

channel signal 2 channel

Receiver (message)

content 2

The translator is both a receiver and a producer, a special category of communicator

whose behaviour (act of communication) is conditioned by the previous one and whose
reception of that previous act is intensive. Unlike other receivers who have a choice
whether to pay more or less attention to their listening or reading, the translator interacts
closely with the source language text, whether for immediate purpose (simultaneous
interpreteri) or in a more reflective way (literary translator).
In a normative (prescriptive) approach, a good translation is:
 that in which the merit of the original work is so completely transfused into another language, as
to be distinctly apprehended, and as strongly felt, by a native of the country to which that
language belongs, as it is by those who speak the language of the original work. (Tytler, 1791).

It certainly reminds us the classical rules (e.g. “Do not end a sentence with a
preposition”, “Do not use split infinitives”, etc). At the same time, the norms prescribe
the double nature of translation: process and product, this drawing on the resources of
psycholinguistics (by examining text processing in the mind of the translator) and of
sociolinguistics (by placing the source language text – SLT and the target language text –
TLT in their cultural contexts).
Translation is an abstract concept incorporating both the process/the activity and the
product/the translated text. From now on we shall refer to the activity with the term of
translating.
Again, diagrammatically we have the following representation of the
translation/translating process:

SLT Memory

Analysis

Semantic

Synthesis TLT

Of course, any theoretical framework should deal with translation problems and should
formulate a set of strategies for approaching this i.e. it should provide a model whose
cohesive character is explained by the collection of data. There are no cast-iron rules.
Everything is more or less.
Newmark (1988) identifies four levels present in various degrees consciously in the mind
when translating:
1. the SLT level to which we continually go back to;
2. the referential level – objects, real or imaginary, which we visualize
progressively in the comprehension and reproduction process;
3. the cohesive level which is more general, concerned with grammar and
presuppositions of the SLT;
4. the level of naturalness, of common language appropriate to the writer/speaker
under the circumstances.
The fourth level binds translation theory to translating theory and translating theory to
practice. Newmark (1981, p.20) proposes a scheme of such a functional theory:

The language functions

 Expressive Informative Vocative
(authorative) (directive or persuasive)

Translation theory

Semantic Communicative

Translation theory framework of reference

Contextual factors
Problem Translation procedures

Theory of translating

Textual
Reference Levels
Cohesive
Natural

Translation practice

The translation practice brings about specifications of the translator competence i.e.
knowledge and skills.

The professional (technical) translator has access to five distinct kinds of knowledge: TL
knowledge, text-type knowledge, SL knowledge, subject area (real world) knowledge and
contrastive knowledge. (Johnson and Whitelock: 1987, p.137)

There is overlap between these five kinds which will be discussed later on. What proves
to be more important is adequacy in translation in terms of the specifications of the task
and the users’ needs.
Bearing in mind Chomsky’s “ideal speaker – hearer” we can postulate the existence of
the ideal bilingual reader – writer whose communicative competence consists in a perfect
knowledge of both languages. At the same time, this ideal bilingual reader – writer is
unaffected by theoretically irrelevant conditions such as memory limitations, distractions,
shifts of attention or interest, errors – random or characteristic, in applying his knowledge
in actual performance (in terms of competence and performance, the error is associated to
competence, while the mistake is connected to performance).
Having experienced the end of the know-how century and of the theory of information,
we cannot but speak of the expert system as a specialized software package of two major
components:
1. a knowledge base:
 E.g. in medicine this will include lists of illnesses and their associated
symptoms
2. an inference mechanism or an inference engine:
E.g. in medicine the comparison of symptoms reported with those listed
in the database and the matching of the symptoms with likely
illnesses.
This inference mechanism allows the translator to decode the SL texts as well as to
encode/write TL texts. Moreover, an expert system would need:
1. an interface to allow the dialogue between the system and the user;
2. a monitor to keep track of the dialogue;
3. a knowledge acquisition system for updating the knowledge base.
The translator’s communicative competence is a multi-component. Grammar competence
can be identified with the knowledge and skills to understand and express the literal
meaning of utterances. Sociolinguistic competence should be seen as a knowledge of and
ability to produce and understand utterances appropriately in context. Discourse
competence is the ability to combine form and meaning to achieve unified spoken or
written text in different genres ( Discourse: modes of speaking and writing which involve
social groups in adopting a particular attitude towards areas of socio-cultural activity –
e.g. racist discourse, bureaucratese, etc. Genres: conventional forms of texts associated
with particular types of social occasion (e.g. the news report, the editorial, the cooking
recipe) .
Special attention will be paid to the sociolinguistics variables of power and distance
which transcend particular fields and modes of translating ( In fact, these have to do with
the degree of imposition which is ideally kept at a minimum. In handling distance, two
basic sets of politeness strategies are in use: positive (those which show intimacy
between speaker and hearer) and negative (those which underline social distance between
participants). Power emanates from the text producer’s ability to impose his/her plan at
the expense of the text receiver’s plans. On the other hand, solidarity is the willingness of
the text producer to relinquish power and work with his/her interlocutors as members of a
team. Particular choices within mood (basic choice we make between using a statement, a
question or a command) and modality (expressing distinctions such as: possibility vs.
probability vs. actuality) are relevant to the key terms of power or solidarity ). Strategic
competence is the same as the mastery of communications strategies which may be used
to improve communications or to compensate for breakdowns.
Cumulatively, the translator should possess sensitivity to language, linguistic competence
in both languages and communicative competence in both cultures in order to create
(write neatly, plainly and nicely in a variety of registers), comprehend and use context-
free texts ( Every text should be envisaged as a communicative transaction taking place
within a social framework. Malinowski (1923, 1935) considers that social, cultural and
not linguistic factors alone are involved in communication) as the means of participation
in context – sensitive discourse. He should possess

the ability to research often temporarily the topic of the texts being translated, and to master
one specialism – (Newmark: 1991, p.49)

In the light of this multisided translator competence, we can now formulate some general
assumptions regarding a model of translating:
 1. the process of translating is to be seen as a general phenomenon of human
information processing;
2. translating should be modelled in a way which reflects its position within the
psychological domain of information processing;
3. translating takes place in both short and long term memory;.
4. it operates at the linguistic level of clause;
5. it is both bottom-up and top-down processing (cascaded and interactive)
6. the process of translating requires there to be for both languages:
- a visual word – recognition systems and a writing system;
- a syntactic processor;
- a frequent lexis store (FLS), a lexical search mechanism (LSM), a frequent
structure store (FSS) and a parser;
- a semantic processor;
- a pragmatic processor;
- an idea organizer;
- a planner.
It is therefore obvious that the process can be divided into analysis and synthesis of
information at several levels of unquestioned importance: syntactic, semantic and
pragmatic.
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