Challenging the Traditional Axioms

Translation into a non-mother tongue

Author
ORCID logoNike K. Pokorn | University of Ljubljana
HardboundAvailable
ISBN 9789027216687 (Eur) | EUR 95.00
ISBN 9781588116345 (USA) | USD 143.00
 
e-Book Open Access
ISBN 9789027294531
 
Google Play logo
Translation into a non-mother tongue or inverse translation, especially of literary texts, has always been frowned upon within Translation Studies in Western cultures and regarded by literary scholars and linguists as an activity of dubious worth, doomed to fail. The study, which received an award from EST in 2001, sets out to challenge the established view and to critically question some of the axiomatic assumptions of Western theorists. Its challenge is supported by extensive empirical research involving reader response to translations of specific literary texts. The conclusion reached is that the quality of the translation, its fluency and acceptability in the target language environment depend primarily on the as yet undetermined individual abilities of the particular translator, his/her translation strategy and knowledge of the source and target cultures, and not on his/her mother tongue or the direction in which s/he is translating.
[Benjamins Translation Library, 62] 2005.  xii, 163 pp.
Publishing status: Available

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Table of Contents
“The greatest contribution of the study is the challenge it presents to prevailing preconceptions about the nature of translation. The methodology used, a systematic one that comprises two parts, is more than adequate to adress the central question of the study, that is, whether inverse translations show any common features of the target language. [...] The whole book is written in plain language, without the obscure linguistic terms and concepts, so it is really accessible to all researchers and students who have an interest in this area. This is especially important since the ultimate goal of the author is to change a perceived prejudice of general theorists and practitioners towards inverse translation. [...] Overall the book is a good research monograph with a clear research question containing well-positioned data to prove the argument. It is thought-provoking and will inspire similar research to be done for the same good cause.”
“[...] this book can be appreciated for several reasons: It has a sound theoretical basis, the hypothesis it starts with is tested using a large corpus made by eight pairs and seven individuals. Since the analysis of the translations 'revealed no particular connection between the mother tongue of the translator and either the quality or the accuracy his/her translation' (p.107), a well-constructed questionnaire was administered via interview to forty-six native speakers in the USA, England and Canada. What a monumental task! Last but not least, the book makes an exciting and enjoyable piece of reading, which is not a mere trifle.”
Cited by

Cited by 73 other publications

Alves, Fabio & Arnt Lykke Jakobsen
2022. The Translation Process. In The Cambridge Handbook of Translation,  pp. 34 ff. DOI logo
Baer, Brian James & Nike K. Pokorn1
2019. Diaspora as a Distinct Site of Translational Activity: The Case of U.S. Immigrant Newspapers, 1917-1941. TTR 31:2  pp. 141 ff. DOI logo
Carreres, Ángeles, Micaela Muñoz-Calvo & María Noriega-Sánchez
2017. Translation in Spanish language teaching: the fifth skill/La traducción en la enseñanza del español: la quinta destreza. Journal of Spanish Language Teaching 4:2  pp. 99 ff. DOI logo
Castilho, Sheila, Stephen Doherty, Federico Gaspari & Joss Moorkens
2018. Approaches to Human and Machine Translation Quality Assessment. In Translation Quality Assessment [Machine Translation: Technologies and Applications, 1],  pp. 9 ff. DOI logo
Chan, Andy Lung Jan
2010. Education, Experience and Translator Certification as Signaling Mechanisms. FORUM. Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction / International Journal of Interpretation and Translation 8:1  pp. 37 ff. DOI logo
Chang, Nam Fung
2017. Self-image and self-reflection. Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation 63:5  pp. 643 ff. DOI logo
Colina, Sonia & Claudia V. Angelelli
2015. T&I pedagogy in dialogue with other disciplines. Translation and Interpreting Studies  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Colina, Sonia & Claudia V. Angelelli
2017. Translation and interpreting pedagogy in dialogue with other disciplines. In Translation and Interpreting Pedagogy in Dialogue with Other Disciplines [Benjamins Current Topics, 90],  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Dam-Jensen, Helle & Karen Korning Zethsen
2008. Translator awareness of semantic prosodies. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 20:2  pp. 203 ff. DOI logo
Dimitriu, Ileana
2010. A “Translated” Discipline: English as Intercultural Communication. Journal of Literary Studies 26:2  pp. 12 ff. DOI logo
Dimitriu, Ileana
2011. Beyond the Mono-Cultural Mind ‘Translating’ English Studies. Current Writing 23:1  pp. 2 ff. DOI logo
Duběda, Tomáš
2018. La traduction vers une langue étrangère : compétences, attitudes, contexte social. Meta 63:2  pp. 492 ff. DOI logo
Durmuşoğlu Köse, Gül, Zehra Gülmüş, Volga Yılmaz Gümüş & Gamze Eren
2018. Academics as mediators between languages and cultures in higher-education settings. FORUM. Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction / International Journal of Interpretation and Translation 16:1  pp. 39 ff. DOI logo
Ehrensberger-Dow, Maureen & Daniel Perrin
2009. Capturing translation processes to access metalinguistic awareness. Across Languages and Cultures 10:2  pp. 275 ff. DOI logo
Ferreira, Aline
Ferreira, Aline, Alexandra Gottardo & John W. Schwieter
2018. Decision-making processes in direct and inverse translation through retrospective protocols. Translation, Cognition & Behavior 1:1  pp. 98 ff. DOI logo
Ferreira, Aline & John W. Schwieter
2017. Directionality in Translation. In The Handbook of Translation and Cognition,  pp. 90 ff. DOI logo
Giczela-Pastwa, Justyna
2021. Developing phraseological competence in L2 legal translator trainees: a proposal of a data mining technique applied in translation from an LLD into ELF. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 15:2  pp. 187 ff. DOI logo
Grammenidis, Simos
2008. Mediating culinary culture: The case of Greek restaurant menus. Across Languages and Cultures 9:2  pp. 219 ff. DOI logo
Hagemann, Susanne
2019. Directionality in translation and revision teaching: a case study of an A–B teacher working with B–A students. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 13:1  pp. 86 ff. DOI logo
Hewson, Lance
2013. Is English as aLingua FrancaTranslation’s Defining Moment?. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 7:2  pp. 257 ff. DOI logo
Hewson, Lance
2016. Les incertitudes du traduire. Meta 61:1  pp. 12 ff. DOI logo
Hewson, Lance
2019. L’intraduisible : au-delà de l’échec programmé. In L’Intraduisible : les méandres de la traduction,  pp. 23 ff. DOI logo
Hild, Adelina
2006. Review of Godijns & Hinderdael (2005): Directionality in interpreting: The ‘retour’ or the native?. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 8:2  pp. 223 ff. DOI logo
Hirci, Nataša
2022. Translation Work Placement in Slovenia: a key to successful transition to professional workplace settings?. Perspectives  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Hirci, Nataša & Agnes Pisanski Peterlin
2020. Face-to-face andWikirevision in translator training: exploring the advantages of two modes of collaboration. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 14:1  pp. 38 ff. DOI logo
House, Juliane
2013. English as a Lingua Franca and Translation. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 7:2  pp. 279 ff. DOI logo
Jamoussi, Rafik
2015. Exporting cultural goods through the medium of translation in the Arab world: the (not so) strange case of L2 translation. The Translator 21:2  pp. 173 ff. DOI logo
Jurko, Primož
2017. Pragmatic meaning in contrast: semantic prosodies of Slovene and English. Perspectives 25:1  pp. 157 ff. DOI logo
K. Pokorn, Nike, Jason Blake, Donald Reindl & Agnes Pisanski Peterlin
2020. The influence of directionality on the quality of translation output in educational settings. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 14:1  pp. 58 ff. DOI logo
Kelly, Dorothy, Marie-Louise Nobs, Dolores Sanchez & Catherine Way
2006. Reflections on Directionality in Translator Training. FORUM. Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction / International Journal of Interpretation and Translation 4:1  pp. 57 ff. DOI logo
Le, Thuy Hien
2022. Translating humorous literature from Vietnamese into Italian language: an empirical study of humour reception. The European Journal of Humour Research 10:1  pp. 199 ff. DOI logo
Li, Jing & Isabel De la Fuente
1970. Traducción directa e inversa de modismos chinos: estudio empírico de la direccionalidad de traducción al español. Estudios de Traducción 8  pp. 133 ff. DOI logo
Liu, Xiaodong
2021. Cognitive Processing Routes in CI: Settings and Language Directions. In Cognitive Processing Routes in Consecutive Interpreting [New Frontiers in Translation Studies, ],  pp. 117 ff. DOI logo
Lourenço da Silva, Igor A., Fabio Alves, Marcia Schmaltz, Adriana Pagano, Derek Wong, Lidia Chao, Ana Luísa V. Leal, Paulo Quaresma, Caio Garcia & Gabriel Eduardo da Silva
2017. Chapter 4. Translation, post-editing and directionality. In Translation in Transition [Benjamins Translation Library, 133],  pp. 108 ff. DOI logo
Ma, Zuqiong
2018. English Stylistics in a Chinese-English literary translation classroom. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 12:4  pp. 406 ff. DOI logo
Malkiel, Brenda
2006. The effect of translator training on interference and difficulty. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 18:2  pp. 337 ff. DOI logo
Manterola Agirrezabalaga, Elizabete
2017. Collaborative Self-Translation in a Minority Language: Power Implications in the Process, the Actors and the Literary Systems Involved. In Self-Translation and Power,  pp. 191 ff. DOI logo
Martín, Sara
2021. An Insufficient Process of Internationalization: Militant Translation and the Experience of Translating into English the Best-Selling Catalan (Sf) Novel Ever. In Science Fiction in Translation [Studies in Global Science Fiction, ],  pp. 33 ff. DOI logo
Mraček, David
2018. Jiří Levý a didaktika překladu. AUC PHILOLOGICA 2018:2  pp. 59 ff. DOI logo
Nasi, Franco
2012. Creativity on Probation: On Translating a Nursery Rhyme. Translation Review 83:1  pp. 35 ff. DOI logo
Ni, Xiuhua
2022. Cold War Cultural Diplomacy in Outward State Translation of Chinese Literature in the PRC (1949–1966). Asian Studies Review 46:3  pp. 530 ff. DOI logo
NICODEMUS, BRENDA & KAREN EMMOREY
2013. Direction asymmetries in spoken and signed language interpreting. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 16:3  pp. 624 ff. DOI logo
O'Rourke, Bernadette
2011. Whose Language Is It? Struggles for Language Ownership in an Irish Language Classroom. Journal of Language, Identity & Education 10:5  pp. 327 ff. DOI logo
O’Connell, Eithne, Michał Borodo, Xu Jianzhong, Seán Ó Ciaráin & Monika Linke
2010. Book Reviews. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 4:1  pp. 115 ff. DOI logo
O’Rourke, Bernadette, Joan Pujolar & John Walsh
2016. Language Education for New Speakers. In Language Policy and Political Issues in Education,  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
O’Rourke, Bernadette, Joan Pujolar & John Walsh
2017. Language Education for New Speakers. In Language Policy and Political Issues in Education,  pp. 273 ff. DOI logo
Paradowski, Michał B.
2018. What’s cooking in English culinary texts? Insights from genre corpora for cookbook and menu writers and translators. The Translator 24:1  pp. 50 ff. DOI logo
Pavlović, Nataša
2007. Directionality in Translation and Interpreting Practice. FORUM. Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction / International Journal of Interpretation and Translation 5:2  pp. 79 ff. DOI logo
Pietrzak, Paulina
2013. Divergent Goals: Teaching Language for General and Translation Purposes in Contrast. In Correspondences and Contrasts in Foreign Language Pedagogy and Translation Studies [Second Language Learning and Teaching, ],  pp. 233 ff. DOI logo
Pokorn, Nike K.
2007. In defence of fuzziness. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 19:2  pp. 327 ff. DOI logo
Pokorn, Nike K.
2009. Natives or Non-natives? That Is the Question …. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 3:2  pp. 189 ff. DOI logo
Pokorn, Nike K.
2011. Directionality. In Handbook of Translation Studies [Handbook of Translation Studies, 2],  pp. 37 ff. DOI logo
Rodríguez, Nadia & Bettina Schnell
2012. Direccionalidad y formación de traductores: un estudio longitudinal de los procesos cognitivos en la traducción inversa. Meta 57:1  pp. 67 ff. DOI logo
Rodríguez-Inés, Patricia
2014. Using corpora for awareness-raising purposes in translation, especially into a foreign language (Spanish–English). Perspectives 22:2  pp. 222 ff. DOI logo
Rodríguez-Inés, Patricia & Olivia Fox
2018. Reconciling Institutional and Professional Requirements in the Specialised Inverse Translation Class – A Case Study. Meta 63:1  pp. 47 ff. DOI logo
SEILHAMER, MARK F.
2015. The ownership of English in Taiwan. World Englishes 34:3  pp. 370 ff. DOI logo
Seruya, Teresa
2016. Do People Only Create in Their Mother Tongue? Schleiermacher’s Argument Against the “Naturalizing” Method of Translation, From Today’s Point of View. In Rereading Schleiermacher: Translation, Cognition and Culture [New Frontiers in Translation Studies, ],  pp. 125 ff. DOI logo
Shi, Jiasheng
2013. Inverse Translation in China: a Necessary Choice or a Necessary Evil. i-manager’s Journal on English Language Teaching 3:1  pp. 15 ff. DOI logo
Stasimioti, Maria, Vilelmini Sosoni & Konstantinos Chatzitheodorou
2021. Investigating post-editing effort. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 8:2  pp. 378 ff. DOI logo
Tang, Jun
2017. Translating into English as a Non-Native Language: a translator trainer’s perspective. The Translator 23:4  pp. 388 ff. DOI logo
Taviano, Stefania
2013. English as a Lingua Franca and Translation. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 7:2  pp. 155 ff. DOI logo
Taylor, Chris, Elisa Calvo Encinas, Sara Laviosa & Michał B. Paradowski
2013. Book Reviews. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 7:2  pp. 299 ff. DOI logo
Torres-Simón, Esther
2008. Non-Standard Translation Practices in Post-Bellum Korea. FORUM. Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction / International Journal of Interpretation and Translation 6:2  pp. 215 ff. DOI logo
Wang, Baorong
2012. Translation Practices and the Issue of Directionality in China. Meta 56:4  pp. 896 ff. DOI logo
Wang, Yifang
2021. The Impact of Directionality on Cognitive Patterns in the Translation of Metaphors. In Advances in Cognitive Translation Studies [New Frontiers in Translation Studies, ],  pp. 201 ff. DOI logo
Whyatt, Bogusława
2022. In search of directionality effectsin the translation processand in the end product. Translation, Cognition & Behavior  pp. 79 ff. DOI logo
YILMAZ GÜMÜŞ, Volga
2020. Hasan Erkek’in Eşik Adlı Oyunundaki Deyim ve Eğretilemelerin Çevirisi: Zorluklar ve Çözüm Önerileri. Çeviribilim ve Uygulamaları Dergisi DOI logo
Zanettin, Federico
2009. Corpus-based Translation Activities for Language Learners. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 3:2  pp. 209 ff. DOI logo
Zuluaga Molina, Juan Felipe & Antonio Tamayo Herrera
2021. A Quantitative Exploration to Directionality Among Sworn Translators and Interpreters in Colombia. Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción 14:2  pp. 601 ff. DOI logo
Šveda, Pavol & Martin Djovčoš
2021. The dominance of English. FORUM. Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction / International Journal of Interpretation and Translation 19:2  pp. 164 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 3 december 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Subjects

Translation & Interpreting Studies

Translation Studies

Main BIC Subject

CFP: Translation & interpretation

Main BISAC Subject

LAN023000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Translating & Interpreting
ONIX Metadata
ONIX 2.1
ONIX 3.0
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2005042120 | Marc record