Didactics of Translation: Text in Context

The relationship between the social aspect and cognitive aspect

In Kiraly’s model of translation processes, the relationship between the social aspect and cognitive aspect is seen as an intersection between “the external context of situation and the translator’s knowledge set: his knowledge of language, textuality, subject, culture, and social interaction” (Kiraly 1995: 58). In other words, it is the relationship between the source text input, involving the determination of the CS1, and long term memory. This relationship according to Kiraly is very important in translation activity:
As several protocols have shown, the translator’s apprehension of the CS1 appears to serve a framing and filtering function; components of the CS1 act as criteria conditioning the selection and knowledge of elements from long term memory and constraining translation processing in both the workspace and controlled processing center (Ibid: 106).

Moreover, this relationship, according to Kiraly, is not limited to this CS1 but rather extends to the CS2 and CS3, leading to the emergence of what he calls an “expectation structure”:

An expectation structure (a projection of what a translation should be like) derives from the translator’s knowledge of translation (schemata) when it intersects with the multiple contexts of situation. The expectation structure is a master plan (or a set of constraints) for a translation in progress. (Ibid: 106)
To underline the importance of this, Kiraly draws attention to the fact that a pedagogy of translation has to address the question of how “cognitive processes articulate with the context of situation, that is to say, how the context of situation is processed and competencies of several kinds are brought to bear in text comprehension and production” (Ibid: 63).

6.