Cover not available
Article published In:
The Metalanguage of Translation
Edited by Yves Gambier and Luc van Doorslaer
[Target 19:2] 2007
► pp. 327–336

In defence of fuzziness

| University of Ljubljana, Slovenia,
In Translation Studies the definitions of the concepts native speaker and mother tongue have been uncritically adopted from linguistics and are regarded as defined and clarified as far as their meaning is concerned, despite the fact that neither linguistics nor translation theory can offer an objective and water-tight definition of the terms. A similar desire for univocal terms can also be detected in the claims for the need of one, universally accepted term for the same phenomenon where various competing terms already exist and are in use.
Although some linguists have already expressed their doubts in the justification of some of the fundamental linguistic concepts, as Rajogopalan has observed, a lot of them are still happy working with such discreet entities thus making linguistics perhaps the most “19th century” of the academic disciplines taught in universities today. Unfortunately, this could also be stated for some currents in Translation Studies, despite the fact that translation research can and should provide the most suitable field where such axiomatic truths are challenged. The article questions this desire for the univocal and argues that it is high time we all learn to live with more fuzzy definitions.
Keywords: acceptable term, fuzziness, mother tongue, native speaker, univocality
Article outline
  • 1.Terminology and power
  • 2.Mother tongue
  • 3.Native speaker
  • 4.Translating into a non-mother tongue?
  • 5.Conceptual diversity: An added value
  • References
Published online: 18 January 2008
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.19.2.10pok
References (31)
References
Beeby, Allison Lonsdale. 1996. Teaching translation from Spanish to English: Worlds beyond Words. Ottawa: University of Ottawa. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Birdsong, David. 1992. “Ultimate attainment in second language acquisition”. Language 681. 706–755.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard. [1927] 1970. “Literate and illiterate speech”. American speech 21. 232–239; also in A Leonard Bloomfield anthology, ed. Charles F. Hockett. Bloomington: Indiana Press.Google Scholar
Bussmann, Hadumod ed. 1996. Routledge dictionary of language and linguistics. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Campbell, Stuart. 1998. Translation into the second language. London and New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Cook, Vivian. 1999. “Going beyond the native speaker in language teaching”. TESOL quarterly 33:2. 185–209.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coppieters, René. 1987. “Competence differences between native and near-native speakers”. Language 63:3. 544–573.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crystal, David. 1992. Introducing linguistics. London, New York, Ringwood, Toronto, Aukland: Penguin Group.Google Scholar
Crystal, David. [1987] 1994. The Cambridge encyclopedia of language. Cambridge, New York and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Davies, Alan. 2003. The native speaker: Myth and reality. Clevedon, Buffalo, Toronto, Sydney: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1989. Introduction to Edmund Husserl’s Origin of geometry, tr. John P. Leavey. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Eisenstein, Miriam and Jean W. Bodman. 1986. “‘I very appreciate!’: Expressions of gratitude by native and non-native speakers of American English”. Applied linguistics 7:2. 167–185.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Faulkner Larry R. and John R. Durbin. 2000. “In Memoriam André Lefevere”. [URL]Google Scholar
Grosman, Meta, Mira Kadric, Irena Kovačič and Mary Snell-Hornby, eds. 2000. Translation into non-mother tongues in professional practice and training. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
Ioup, Georgette, Elizabeth Boustagui, Manal El Tigi and Martha Moselle. 1994. “Reexamining the critical period hypothesis: A case study of successful adult SLA in a naturalistic environment”. Studies in second language acquisition 161. 73–98.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jakobson, Roman. 1959. “On linguistic aspects of translation”. Reuben A. Brower, ed. On translation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959. 232–239.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kelly, Dorothy, Marie-Louise Nobs, Dolores Sánchez and Catherine Way. 2003. La Direccionalidad en Traducción e Interpretación: Perspectivas teóricas, profesionales y didácticas. Granada: Atrio.Google Scholar
. 2003a. “Reflexiones en torno a algunos conceptos básicos”. Kelly et al.. 2003. 33–41.Google Scholar
Long, Michael H. 1990. “Maturational constraints on language development”. Studies in second language acquisition 121. 251–285.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
MacKenzie, Rosemary. 1998. “The place of language teaching in a quality-oriented translators’ training programme”. Kirsten Malmkjær, ed. Translation and language teaching—Language teaching and translation. Manchester: St Jerome, 1998. 213–221.Google Scholar
McAlester, Gerard. 1992. “Teaching translation into a foreign language: Status, scope and aims”. Cay Dollerup and Anne Loddegaard, eds. Teaching translation and interpreting: Training, talent, and experience. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1992. 291–298.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Newmark, Peter. 1988. A textbook of translation. London: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Paikeday, Thomas M. 1985. The native speaker is dead!: An informal discussion of a linguistic myth with Noam Chomsky and other linguists, philosophers, psychologists, and lexicographers. Toronto and New York: Paikeday Publishing.Google Scholar
Phillipson, Robert. 1992. Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pokorn, Nike K. 2005. Challenging the traditional axioms. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Prunč, Erich. 2003. “Óptimo, subóptimo, fatal: reflexiones sobre la democracía etnolingüística en la cultura europea de traducción”. Kelly et al.. 2003. 67–89.Google Scholar
Rajagopalan, Kanavillil. 1999. “Of EFL teachers, conscience, and cowardice”. ELT journal 53:3. 200–206.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rampton, M.B.H. 1990. “Displacing the ‘native speaker’: Expertise, affiliation, and inheritance”. ELT journal 44:2. 97–101.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ross, J.R. 1979. “Where is English?” C.J. Fillmore, D. Kempler and W.S.-Y. Wang, eds. Individual differences in language ability and language behaviour. New York: Academic Press 1979. 127–166. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove and Robert Phillipson. 1989. “‘Mother tongue’: The theoretical and sociopolitical construction of a concept”. Ulrich Ammon, ed. Status and function of languages and language varieties. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1989. 450–477.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Way, Cathy. 2005. La traducción como acción social: el caso de los documentos académicos (espa ñol-inglés). Granada: Editorial UGR.Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

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
Eccles, N. S. & S. Viviers
2011. The Origins and Meanings of Names Describing Investment Practices that Integrate a Consideration of ESG Issues in the Academic Literature. Journal of Business Ethics 104:3 ► pp. 389 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

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 10 july 2024. 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.