Heidrun Gerzymisch-Arbogast

Knowledge Systems and Translation

It is generally agreed that knowledge plays an important role in translation and interpreting and that it should therefore be of central concern to studies in this field. However, present-day translation and interpreting studies offer only a limited amount of research specifically dedicated to knowledge-related issues. This book is one of the first to systematically address the question of knowledge in translation and interpreting. It is a collection of papers by leading scholars who address both theoretical and conceptual aspects of knowledge, questions of methodology in research into knowledge in translation and interpreting, and the application of knowledge-based methods in empirical investigations. The book is thus a state-of-the-art report on the question of knowledge in the field of translation and interpreting.

Culture and coherence in the Pear Tree Project

The following article deals with the question of transferring cultural phenomena in multilingual audio description (AD). The research is based on film description material from the Pear Tree Project (PTP). Identifying cultural phenomena in audio description is a prerequisite for deciding whether an existing AD for a film or DVD is ‘translatable’ or whether it needs to be newly created for each language and culture separately. Extending beyond lexical and grammatical issues, the article raises the question of how non-verbal cultural issues influence the coherence of an AD. This problem has been little discussed in AD research literature. Based on the methodological translation triad, as discussed in Gerzymisch-Arbogast (1998), we suggest that background cultural knowledge can be made transparent. We will show that differing cultural assumptions may lead to coherence gaps and demonstrate by individual hypotheses how these coherence gaps may be bridged. This may strengthen the argument that translating an AD into another language is inadequate from a cultural point of view.

THAT RISING CORN ... CE BLE QUI LEVE ... DIE AUFGEHENDE SAAT ... TOWARDS A COMMON TRANSLATION PROFILE

Abstract The article positions the role of translation theory vis-à.-vis the challenges of translation practice. After portraying its heterogeneous historical development and the ensuing compartrnentalization of translation today, it argues that translation theory has developed a theoretical and methodological profile in the past twenty years as a useful resource for translation practice in the future. With the understanding that any discipline as a whole sustains its success only when operating on coherent concepts and methodologies, a possible common methodological ground for the complex dimensions of translation is outlined and discussed with special reference to what it can offer to the practice of literary translation. Against this background it is illustrated that conceptual and methodological coherence and transparency are not only useful standards when making and discussing literary translation decisions but are the essential backbone for the continued success of translation as a discipline

ON THE THEMATIC NATURE OF THE SUBJUNCTIVE IN THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES

The following study relates to the theoretical discussion concerning whether the subjunctif in the Romance languages is by nature thematic