Blackwell Reference Online

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Communication between different individuals and nations is not always easy, especially when more than one language is involved. The job of the translator and / or interpreter is to try to bridge the gap between two foreign languages. This can also include translation problems arising from historical developments within one language. In this chapter, translating and interpreting will be characterized as a communicative device (section 2). After defining the modes of interpreting (section 3), the principles influencing the transfer of messages from one language to another will be outlined (section 4). In order to illustrate some of the lexical problems faced by the translator and / or interpreter, particular attention will be paid to the area known as “false friends” (section 5). As will be emphasized, each act of translation is conditioned by many factors (with various functions) which govern the choice of a target-language rendition of a given source-language text (section 6). In the final section, a brief survey of recent developments in machine translation will be presented (section 7). Translation is undoubtedly a communicative device; moreover, as John Rupert Firth (1956: 135) put it, “The fact is, translation is a necessity on economic and on general human grounds.” Some researchers postulate an autonomous status for translation studies, arguing that these studies bring together ... log in or subscribe to read full text