What Is a Translating Translator Doing?
Brian Mossop | Government of Canada Translation Bureau and York University School of Translation
Translating is here defined as the quoting, in sequential chunks, of the wording of a written, oral or signed text, with an imitative purpose. These features distinguish it from other sorts of language activity—intralingual paraphrasing, re-expressing of ideas, fictive quoting, speaking from a script, ghostwriting—and thus provide an object for a theory of translation production. The defining feature 'quoting ' is taken to involve demonstrating to someone selected features of the source text. Thus the translational quoter is engaged in a dual activity: quoting OF the source text (rendering work) and quoting TO the readers or listeners (pragmatic work). The texts commonly called translations arise from some combination of rendering, pragmatic and non-translational work.
Article outline
- 1.Defining Translation: Five Criteria and Four Deadends
- 2.Translating Is Quoting
- 2.1.The Translator as Rapporteur
- 2.2.Indirect Reporting, Exact-words Quoting, Fictive Quoting and Free Direct Quoting
- 3.Translational Rewording Is Sequential
- 4.Translating Has an Imitative Purpose
- 5.The Interlinguality of Translating
- 6.The Duality of Translational Quoting
- 6.1.Rendering
- 6.2.Pragmatic Work
- 6.3.The Primacy of Rendering
- 7.Philosophical Conclusion
- Notes
-
References
Published online: 01 January 1998
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.10.2.03mos
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.10.2.03mos
References
Bandia, Paul
Banfield, Ann
Berk-Seligson, Susan
Cruse, David
Folkart, Barbara
Gorp, Hendrik van
Jakobson, Roman
Kaufert, Joseph and John O’Neil
Levý, Jiří
Mossop, Brian
unpublished. “Is Paraphrasing Intralingual Translation?”
Pym, Anthony
Schleiermacher, Friedrich
Schreiber, Michael
Séguinot, Candace
Seleskovitch, Danica
Sternberg, Meir
Tannen, Deborah
Toury, Gideon
Voloshinov, Valentin (= Mikhail Bakhtin)
Wadensjö, Cecilia
Whitman-Linsen, Candace
Cited by
Cited by 15 other publications
No author info given
Bosseaux, Charlotte
Bosseaux, Charlotte
Cummins, Sarah
Greenall, Annjo K., Cecilia Alvstad, Hanne Jansen & Kristiina Taivalkoski-Shilov
Havumetsä, Nina
Hill-Madsen, Aage
Korning Zethsen, Karen & Aage Hill-Madsen
Mossop, Brian
Scarpa, Federica
Taivalkoski-Shilov, Kristiina
Taivalkoski-Shilov, Kristiina
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 april 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.