Didactics of Translation: Text in Context

Translation models

According to Chau (Ibid: 119), the contents of all the translation curricula examined can be grouped under three main areas: grammatical, cultural and interpretive. The elements of these three areas are “mixed with varying degrees of emphasis” in these translation curricula. For Chau this classification into three areas is very useful pedagogically. He

therefore gives a detailed description of the main characteristic features of each of these areas along with their theoretical background. He also assigns the term model, by which he means “a particular approach in curriculum planning”, to each one of these areas: Grammatical Model, Cultural Model and Interpretive Model.

Thus, for Chau, the Grammatical Model considers translating as a mere interlingual operation with an emphasis on langue rather than parole. In other words, translating boils down to a “mechanical substitution of lexicon and conversion of syntax” (Ibid: 122).
Concerning the Cultural Model, it is argued that it is not always possible to find TL equivalents for SL words since meaning is defined in terms of cultural fields and contexts. Meaning is therefore said to be dependent on the culture in which the language is used. Culture inevitably reflects the users’ attitudes, values, experiences and traditions. The Cultural Model, thus, focuses on intercultural contrasts (Ibid: 131-133).
As for the Interpretive Model, translating is regarded as an interpretive process in which all the communicative factors in a text have to be heeded in order to render the source text. This point is well emphasized by Beaugrande (1978: 13):
Most translation studies are limited to a confrontation of the text alone, that is, without regard for how the texts were produced and how they affect readers. This procedure would no longer be valid... The focus of translation studies would be shifted away from the incidental incompatibilities among languages toward the systematic communication factors shared by languages. Only in light of this new focus can such issues as equivalence and translation evaluation be satisfactorily clarified.
It is perhaps worth noting that Chau attaches to each of these translation models two teaching methods which he describes as specific means of application of a particular model. Thus, the Grammatical Model is associated with the Traditional Grammar Method and the Formal Linguistic Method, the Cultural Model is associated with the Ethnographical-Semantic Method and the Dynamic Equivalence Method; finally, the Interpretive Model is associated with the Text Analysis Method and the Hermeneutic Method.
According to Chau, the Traditional Grammar Method is the product of a theory of language which was dominant from the mid-19^th century to the mid-20^th century and which advocated the idea of the universality of the human mind and the existence of a set of categories to classify the forms of language. This method is prescriptive and is based on the principles of contrastive grammar; it is also static, being concerned with the translation of langue rather than parole. However, Chau maintains that this method

has a role to play in translation training and is also much in favour with translation students as it gives them a feeling of security (Chau 1984: 126). In contrast, the Formal Linguistic Method is descriptive since “it defines classes and assigns rules” for languages not on the basis of subjective meaning, but rather on the basis of a structural analysis of the

phonology, morphology and syntax of a language.
In the Ethnographical-Semantic Method, the emphasis is laid on intercultural contrasts. Thus, the SL civilization is introduced and contrasted with that of the target language. For Chau, “translation training, according to this method, is basically a cultivation of the awareness of cultural gaps” (colour, kinship terms ...) (Ibid: 136). This method has its origin in the ‘relativity’ view of the world theory which was first put forward by Humboldt and then espoused by Whorf and Sapir.
The Dynamic Equivalence Method, on the other hand, resorts to techniques which can reproduce in the TL reader the same response that was felt by the SL reader. Among these techniques, there is cultural transposition (i.e. replacing a cultural element by another in order to obtain a similar response). For Chau, the success of a translation in this method is measured in terms of the “similarity of response of the TLT reader and the original SLT receptor” (Ibid: 140).
The Text Analysis Method was the product of a new linguistic subdiscipline, namely textlinguistics. The latter can be defined as “the study of text as a communicative event rather than as a shapeless string of words and structures” (Baker 1992: 5). Thus, in textlinguistics, a text is considered as a communicative event involving a text producer, a specific audience and a specific context. The translator, as a reader, has to go through an interpretive process of the text context in order to identify the degree of formality, emotiveness... which he has to adopt when translating. In addition to this, he has to take into account the source text discourse (co-text) as a whole, i.e. as a unit of translation, and try to find its equivalent target discourse. This means that he should be aware of the principles governing the organization of discourse in both SL and TL. In contrast, the Hermeneutic Method does not attempt to reconstitute the meaning of a text by interpreting its context since a text, for this method, is not something that can be analyzed and described independently of the self; a text is considered here as a “co-subject”, an “intersubjective recreation”. The possibility of a unique interpretation of a text is thus rejected (Chau 1984: 148- 155).

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