Abstract Explicitationmight be the most discussed phenomenon in Translation Studies history, and yet the most elusive of them all. This study aims to contribute to the literature on the cognitive relevance-theoretic approach to explicitation and implicitation, adopting the view that translation is a type of pragmatically communicative and interpretive act. First, the study presents a brief critical overview of selected existing accounts of explicitation and implicitation to show how the definitions are riddled with circularity and the classifications with lack of conformity. Second, it addresses the existing relevance-theoretic models in an attempt to reconcile their classifications in a unified, applicable relevance-theoretic model of analysis. It puts to good use the fuller account of the range of pragmatic processes widely discussed in Relevance Theory; namely, disambiguation, reference assignment, free enrichment, higher-level explicature and ad hoc concept. The corpus of the study is selected articles fromNature, as representative of scientific and technical discourse, in English and their translations into Arabic as published in the Arabic edition ofNature. The study leans upon Gutt's Optimal Relevance theory and Pym's Risk Management hypothesis to explain the outcomes of the analysis.

"Machine translation and post-editing competence: Theory, practice and training. BME Autumn Conference, #Translating Europe Workshop, University of Technology and Economics (BME)" published on 07 Jun 2023 by Akadémiai Kiadó.

Abstract Transcreation is a creative adaptation service that has been studied from the perspective of the language services industry and academia. Despite broad interest in the topic, little is known about the perceptions individual professionals have of this practice. To fill this gap, this paper aims to provide information from this point of view and focuses on the economic characteristics of transcreation. For this purpose, a sociological study based on a survey has been carried out. A total of 360 professionals from all over the world participated in this initiative. The results show that transcreation is considered as a hard-to-automate service. The practice is perceived and paid as a value-added one, and it can be defined as a form of qualified craftsmanship. Likewise, it seems to be a better-paid service than others. Finally, transcreation is demanded not only by language service providers but also by companies in industries such as marketing, advertising, public relations, and communication.

Abstract Prefabricated orality is an inherent trait of dramatic texts, given their written-to-be-spoken nature. From the perspective of translation, it has been observed in the literature that rendering this specific mode of discourse into another language poses a major challenge (Baños & Chaume, 2009). However, scant attention has thus far been paid to how prefabricated orality is realised linguistically in translations of theatre plays. This article sets out to offer an overview of syntactic and lexical-semantic features that mirror spoken discourse in a parallel corpus of theatre texts. More specifically, by drawing on an analytical framework proposed for audiovisual texts (Baños, 2014: 414), it aims (1) to verify the presence and incidence of orality markers in the original plays and their translations, and (2) to identify tendencies in translation techniques. Our findings reveal that playwrights and translators resort to a wide range of linguistic features typical of spoken discourse, especially vocatives, repetitions, discourse markers, intensifiers and deixis. In addition, results bring to light the use of different translation options and a possible compensation strategy.

Abstract The article explores the interaction among three key figures in the process of publication of a literary translation into a language of low diffusion: the translator, the editor and the language reviser (the latter specific to the Slovene situation). The aim of the research is to identify who has the strongest position of power in the decision-making process of the production of a literary translation, especially when conflict arises. Information was gathered from the three groups with questionnaires, interviews and an analysis of public statements. The questions focused on the selection of the translator and language reviser, the translation process, the revision process and conflict resolution. A cross-comparison of the results indicates that despite the automatic central position of the editors, they tend to yield their decision-making power to translators, while language revisers have a more subservient, consulting role.

Empirical Translation Studies have recently extended the scope of research to other forms of constrained and mediated communication, including bilingual communication, editing, and intralingual translation. Despite the diversity of factors accounted for so far, this new strand of research is yet to take the leap into intermodal comparisons. In this paper we look at Lexical Diversity (LD), which under different guises, has been studied both within Translation Studies (TS) and Second Language Acquisition (SLA). LD refers to the rate of word repetition, and vocabulary size and depth, and previous research indicates that translated and non-native language tends to be less lexically diverse. There is, however, no study that would investigate both varieties within a unified methodological framework. The study reported here looks at LD in spoken and written modes of constrained and non-constrained language. In a two-step analysis involving Exploratory Factor Analysis and linear mixed-effects regression models we find interpretations to be least lexically diverse and written non-constrained texts to be most diverse. Speeches delivered impromptu are less diverse than those read out loud and the non-constrained texts are more sensitive to such delivery-related differences than the constrained ones.

This study seeks to find a correlation between silent pauses (SPs) in source text and the fluent delivery in target text during these pauses in simultaneous interpreting from Chinese to English. Experiments have been carried out to home in on SPs by speakers to examine exactly what is going on while silences last. Two speech styles of formal speech and spontaneous speech are then taken into consideration to see whether stylistic difference yields different results in the SP–fluency correlation. Two indicators are identified as the factors pointing to the dual effect of SPs: the rate of fluent interpreting during SPs (Indicator One), and the rate of SP-included sentences being successfully interpreted (Indicator Two). Both the concurrent and the continuing effects are proved tenable by looking at the relations between the two indicators and different SP positions and durations. Results indicate that the possibility of both indicators is significantly higher during speakers’ pauses at grammatical junctures; Indicator One is more pronounced during pauses of medium length while Indicator Two is more pronounced during pauses of longer length. A negative correlation between SP duration and Indicator One is found while a positive correlation between SP duration and Indicator Two is confirmed. Furthermore, this study concludes that speech style does make a difference in the correlation between SP positions and the two indicators: formal speech interpreting shows clearly better regularity than spontaneous speech interpreting.

This article illustrates an intermodal study on simultaneous interpreting and translation from Italian into English based primarily on the European Parliament Interpreting Corpus (EPIC) and official translations from the European Parliament. In line with Gideon Toury’s posited law of interference, the hypothesis that drives the present study is that interpreters and translators working into English from Italian may underrepresent the ’s-genitive as a result of the syntactic asymmetry between English (which alternates between ’s and of) and Italian (which only has one type of prepositional phrase consisting of di + noun). The results of this study indicate that ’s-genitives occur with lower frequency in interpreted English than in non-mediated English, thus revealing a particular form of syntactic interference. The same tendency, however, is not found in translations from Italian into English. This difference is explained by recourse to Englund Dimitrova’s (2005) findings on translation expertise and to the literal translation hypothesis (Chesterman 2011) and by suggesting that simultaneous interpreting tends to adhere to the source-language syntax more closely than translation, thus displaying similarities with translation drafts. The results also point to the theoretical and methodological limitations of the théorie du sens developed by the Paris School of Interpreters and Translators.

Abstract In this article, the ability to efficiently apply internalised source-culture knowledge when solving cultural translation problems is analysed at different stages of acquisition of the translator's cultural competence by means of a cross-sectional, quasi-experimental study. Thirty-eight BA students from the first through fourth year studying Translation and Interpreting at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, as well as ten professional translators participated in this investigation. The subjects’ knowledge of German culture and their knowledge of a selection of cultural translation problems in a text were measured prior to its translation. The translation strategies employed by the subjects to solve these problems were recorded and classified using PACTE's (2017b) sequences of actions. The quality of the subjects' solutions to the cultural translation problems of the text was assessed with PACTE's (2017a) acceptability index. These data were combined to compute the source-culture knowledge application index. Results show that the students in all cohorts preferred to utilise information-seeking strategies even when they possessed cultural knowledge about a specific cultural translation problem, while the professional translators in this study were able to apply their internalised source-culture knowledge. The solutions proposed by both the translation students and the professional translators were of a higher quality when internalised source-culture knowledge was applied.