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Article published In:
Interdisciplinarity in Translation and Interpreting Process Research
Edited by Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow, Susanne Göpferich and Sharon O'Brien
[Target 25:1] 2013
► pp. 46–60

Towards a new linguistic-cognitive orientation in translation studies

| University of Hamburg, Germany

A new linguistic-cognitive orientation in translation studies is important today because it can complement the current strong wave of socially and culturally oriented research into and around translation. For balance, it is also necessary and insightful to describe and explain how strategies of comprehending, decisionmaking and re-verbalisation come about in a translator’s bilingual mind. In this paper I sketch some ideas about such a new linguistic-cognitive approach. I first review introspective and retrospective studies and behavioural experiments. Secondly, I assess the value of neuro-linguistic studies for translation. Thirdly, I suggest a new combination of a translation theory and a neuro-functional theory of bilingualism.

Keywords: introspection, consciousness, neuro-linguistic studies, neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism, systemic-functional translation theory, pragmatics, overt and covert translation
Article outline
  • 1.A plea for a new linguistic-cognitive orientation in translation studies
  • 2.Rationale for a new linguistic-cognitive orientation
  • 3.Introspective and retrospective translation process studies: how valid and reliable are their outcomes?
  • 4.Behavioural experiments on the translation process: how valid, reliable and insightful are their outcomes?
  • 5.Bilingual neuro-imaging studies: how useful and relevant are they for translation studies?
  • 6.A neuro-linguistic theory of the functioning of two languages in the brain
  • 7.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 4 March 2013
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.25.1.05hou
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