INTRODUCTION TO TRANSLATION STUDIES 1. The object and parts of Translation Studies.

ВСТУП ДО ПЕРЕКЛАДОЗНАВСТВА 2. Historical background.

LECTURE 1 3. Careers in Translation.

BASIC NOTIONS AND TERMS OF TRANSLATION STUDIES 4. Translation Studies and other philological disciplines.

1. Translation Studies is an academic discipline which deals with the theory, description and application of
translation and interpreting ( oral translation ). Scientists often use another synonymous term for this science -
Translatology. Translation Studies considers the history of translation theory and practice, describes translation
devices and transformations, characterizes methods and techniques of teaching translation. The term translation
means interlingual ( міжмовна ) activity which consists in rendering the sense of the source text ( the original )
into the target language ( the language of translation ) as well as the result of this activity.

Thus, translation is a process and a result.

The object of Translation Studies is the process of translation in its different forms. Traditionally, the following
major parts of this science are singled out.

a) General Translation Studies ( or General Theory of Translation ) deals with the main laws of translation process,
determines the theoretical foundations of interlingual, stylistic. functional correspondences, etc.

b) Partial Theories of Translation reveal the peculiarities of translating from one language into another one, e.g.
English-German or Ukrainian-English translation, the correspondences between language units of two languages.

Of course, general and partial are always interconnected. Partial theories based on practical material and practical
results enrich general theory.

c) Special Translation Studies deals with specific features of various types of translation activity ( wtritten, oral,
consecutive translation ) and genre aspects of translation ( literary, technical, legal translation, etc. ).

2. Historical background.

The European translation tradition has always concentrated on the question" how to translate ". Historians of
translation often refer to the well-known Roman orator Cicero who described how he used translation from Greek
to Roman to improve his oratorical abilities. In 1950s-1960s the debate between linguistic and literary approaches
to translation resulted in the opinion that it would be a good choice to have a separate science that would study all
forms of translation. In this period systematic linguistic-oriented studies of translation began to appear. In 1958,
the French linguists Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet made a contrastive comparison of French and English.
They also formulated the translation device of modulation. In 1965, John Catford suggested the linguistic approach
to translation. In 1960s and 1970s, the Czech scholar Levy worked out the stylistics of literary translation.

It was in 1972 that James Holmes presented a paper " The name and nature of translation studies " in which he
called for the creation of a separate discipline Translation Studies. Since 1990s this discipline has tended to divide
into seperate fields which will be discussed later.

The skills of translation are becoming ever more important and desirable, as today's multicultural and multilingual
society demands effective and efficient communication between languages and cultures.

3 Careers in Translation

Translation Studies prepares students for various careers. Some graduates choose to start their own business as
freelance translators. Others become in-house translators for translation companies. There are also jobs in in
journalism, public relations, and teaching.

Professionals with significant linguistic knowledge as well as translators often choose to study a Master of Arts
degree or a Ph.D. in Translation Studies.
This course of study enables students to develop specialist language skills, research skills reqired for advanced jobs
in translation, teaching and media.

4. Translation Studies and Other Philological Sciences.

a. Translation Studies ( TS ) and Phonetics. Phonetics studies the sound form of utterances. As TS deals with
sentences and texts, the repetition of sounds in certain words, sound imitation should be reproduced in translation
of poetry, songs, advertisements. For example, in the poem " Requiem " by R.L.Stevenson we can observe the
repetition of the sounds : Home is the sailor, home, from sea, / And the hunter home from the hill. The well-known
Ukrainian translator Maksym Strikha reproduced alliteration in the target text but with other sounds : Повернувсь
моряк додому, / З пагорбів прийшов мисливий.

b. TS and Semantics. Semantics studies the meanings of words, sentences, texts, which is very important for TS. For
example, fine ( adjective - прикметник ) and fine ( noun - іменник ) : He paid a fine for speeding.-

He had a fine weekend.

c. Stylistics and TS. Literary and newspaper texts, advertisements and political speeches often include such stylistic
devices as epithets, metaphors, idioms, archaic words which are necessary to understand in the process of
translation. For example, a metaphoric phrase in Stephen King's novel : We were foothills surrounding a mountain
John Coffey.

d. TS and Contrastive Linguistics. Contrastive linguistics deals with comparative study of two or more languages
with the aim of determining their similarities and differences. We may say that TS makes use of the laws of
Contrastive Linguistics for linguistic analysis. For example, Contrastive Morphology shows what Ukrainian grammar
forms correspond to gerund ( Living is the art of loving ) or what is similar in passive voice of the two languages
( The enemy will be defeated ). At the same time, the use of Contrastive Syntax can help understand the
differences in the order of words in the two languages, which is necessary in translating such sentence as: У
кімнату зайшов мій друг. Of course, we cannot use the translation : In the room entered my friend. English has a
fixed order of words in the sentence, so we should translate : My friend entered the room. The same rule can be
observed in the translation of the sentence : У цій статті описуються способи перекладу дієприкметників.

e. TS and Sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics studies the use of language in some social groups ( students, engineers,
sportsmen and sportswomen, or criminals ), i.e. slang or jargon, as well as dialects.

f. TS and Literary Science ( літературознавство ). Literary Science is useful for TS as it helps to understand the style
of the writers and correctly translate lexical units in their texts ( e.g. historical novels by W.Scott ). The translator
can understand the genre of the text ( e.g. the contemporary flash fiction or the humorous English poems -
limericks ), the literary tendencies of some period ( postmodernism ).

g. TS and Text Linguistics. Text Linguistics is a relatively young branch of Linguistics which studies how texts are
built and how parts of the texts are connected, what parts are repeated.

h. TS and Gender Linguistics. This connection is important for understanding how the gender of the author is
reflected in the text, and how the gender of the translator influences the target text.

i. TS and Methodology of Teaching Translation. Methodology develops different methods of teaching written and
oral translation ) from one language into another. This discipline is taught to Master students.