University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Portuguese

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

In this thesis I outline my theory of translation as an interpretive tool. I undertake an analysis of the concepts of heteroglossia, hybridity, and positionality, as conceived of by Mikhail Bakhtin, Homi K. Bhabha, and Linda Alcoff, respectively. These ideas function similarly: heteroglossic forces are constantly being brought to bear upon languages, the hybrid nature of culture is continually being rearticulated, and the positionality of the interpreter is always subject to change. I establish a theory that allows for translation to remain open, a theory that sees all incarnations of a text (the source and all of its translations) as being perpetually discursive, rather than fixing upon one version as the definitive or “correct” rendering. Translations occupy a fluctuating, unstable, and therefore creative location; they provide an ever-shifting temporal and spatial perspective. I translate excerpts from texts written by the Afro-German poet May Ayim and the Turkish German author Emine Sevgi Özdamar from German into English. This brings my theory into application and demonstrates both the fluidity of translation and the depth of interpretation to be found within this process. / Graduate / 0311 / 0679

The authors and translators Erich Arendt and Hans Magnus Enzensberger are two key figures in German literature after 1945, known especially for their appropriation of foreign literatures. They both contributed extensively to the reception of Modern Latin American and Spanish Poetry in East and West Germany by translating poets such as Pablo Neruda, César Vallejo and Rafael Alberti. This is the first study to explore the asymmetrically intertwined literary conditions of the two author-translator figures with regard to the ways in which engaging with a foreign text opens up a perspective on the author-translator’s own poetology.

This study explores the cultural dimension of translating children's and adolescent literature. Framed within the theories of cultural studies, translation studies, Baktinian dialogism, and reader response theories, this study is three-fold: (1) a content analysis is conducted to identify the cultural and linguistic shifts in the translated books and the strategies utilized by the translators for making those shifts, (2) the responses of the source-text (ST) and the target-text (TT) readers are compared; (3) the potential relationship between the translation strategies and the reader responses are inferred based on the findings from (1) and (2). The expected findings are: (1) adept use of various translation strategies helps the TT readers recognize themes as similar as the ST readers; (2) some interventions may create deviating responses in the TT readers as compared with the ST readers; (3) some unique responses by either the ST or the TT readers may be as a direct result of cultural differences more than the translation strategies. The implication section provides recommendations to publishers, translators, educators, parents, teacher educators, and researchers, and suggestions for further research.

Avhandlingen undersöker tolkningsprocessen och tolkprodukten hos konferenstolkar med olika lång tolkerfarenhet. Detta görs utifrån expertteorin (jmf Ericsson, Charness och Hoffman 2007) tillämpad på tolkning. Enligt expertteorin använder mycket skickliga utövare, oberoende av fält, samma typer av processer och strategier för att nå den absoluta toppen inom sitt gebit. En viktig del av expertteorin är medveten eller avsiktlig övning (deliberate practice), en särskild typ av övning som mycket skickliga utövare använder sig av för att förbättra sin insats. Avhandlingen bygger på fyra olika studier om två olika grupper av deltagare. Deltagarna simultantolkar ett eller två tal från engelska till svenska. Två grupper – en tvärsnittsgrupp med nio deltagare på tre olika tolkerfarenhetsnivåer (ingen erfarenhet, kort erfarenhet och lång erfarenhet) samt en longitudinellgrupp med tre deltagare som spelats in vid två olika tillfällen med 15 års mellanrum – analyserades utifrån både process och produkt data. Tolkprocessen studerades genom att analysera och kategorisera process problem, monitorering och tolkstrategier som tolkarna rapporterat om under retrospektion efter tolkning. Tolkprodukten analyserades genom holistiska bedömningsskalor, en för förståelighet och en för nivån på informationsöverföring. Vidare genomfördes också djupintervjuer med deltagarna i det longitudinella materialet. Syftet var att undersöka hur de uppfattade medveten/avsiktlig övning och hur de såg på sin utveckling och övning av tolkfärdigheten. En viktig del av avhandlingen, förutom resultaten, är utvecklingen av de holistiska bedömningsskalorna (utvecklade från Carroll 1966) och utvecklingen av metoden i djupintervjustudien. Slutsatsen i avhandlingen är att det finns en mätbar skillnad i tolkfärdigheten mellan tolkar med liten eller ingen tolkerfarenhet och tolkar med lång tolkerfarenhet. Denna slutsats fick dock inte stöd i det longitudinella (och intra-individuella) materialet. Skillnaderna mellan grupperna i tvärsnittsmaterialet var också tydliga i processdata. Erfarna tolkar stöter på färre process problem än tolkar med kortare erfarenhet. Det fanns också tydliga skillnader vad gäller förekomsterna av monitorering (alltså kontroll av tolkprocessen och produktionen) mellan erfarna tolkar och övriga deltagare. Monitorering verkar vara en skiljelinje mellan erfarna och oerfarna tolkar, de erfarna tolkarna hade mer process kapacitet tillgänglig för att monitorera sig själva. Detta stöddes också till viss del av djupintervjuerna, där deltagarna rapporterade hur de ständigt utvärderar sig själva i syfte att förbättra sin insats. Ett nyckelantagande som slogs fast i början av projektet – nämligen att erfarna tolkar skulle hävda i djupintervjuerna att de ägnade mycket tid åt att öva färdigheten – fick, till författarens förvåning, inte stöd. Tolkarna rapporterade om många övningslika aktiviteter, men hävdade samtidigt att de inte övade. Avhandlingen avslutas genom ett önskemål om fler studier med fokus på medveten/avsiktlig övning bland tolkar. Dessutom föreslår författaren också att termen “experttolk” eller “expert” ska användas med stor försiktighet i forskningsstudier om just expertkunnande i tolkning. Författaren efterlyser också en bredare diskussion om expertkunnande och medveten/avsiktlig övning. / This dissertation investigates the process and product of interpreters with different levels of experience and explores the expertise approach (cf. Ericsson, Charness and Hoffman 2007) as applied to interpreters. The expertise approach claims that highly skilled performers, regardless of their chosen field, use the same type of strategies in order to reach the top levels of their profession. An important feature of the expertise approach is deliberate practice, a specific type of practice that highly skilled performers engage in so as to improve their performance. The dissertation is based on four different studies featuring two different sets of participants. Two data sets – a cross-sectional material with nine participants on three different levels of interpreting experience (none, short and long), and a long-term material with three interpreters recorded at two different points in time – were analysed in terms of both processing and product data. The interpreting process was studied by retrospectively analysing and categorizing processing problems, monitoring and strategies, while the interpreting product was analysed by using holistic rating scales for intelligibility and level of information transfer of the interpreting product. In-depth interviews were also conducted with the long-term participants in order to investigate their perception of deliberate practice and their own view of their skill development. An important and integral part of the dissertation, apart from the results, was the development of the holistic rating scales (adapted from Carroll 1966), and the development of an in-depth interview study. The conclusions of the dissertation are that there are measurable differences of interpreting skill between performers with little or no interpreting experience and performers with long interpreting experience, but this finding could not be supported by the long-term (intra-individual) study. Differences between the groups in the cross-sectional material could also be observed from the process data. Experienced interpreters 16 encountered fewer processing problems than less experienced interpreters and had more strategies at hand to solve problems. There were also clear differences in terms of instances of monitoring (i.e. controlling the interpreting process and output) between experienced interpreters and other subjects. Monitoring seemed to be a dividing line between experienced and inexperienced interpreters, and experienced interpreters had more processing capacity available to monitor themselves. This was also to a certain extent supported in the in-depth interviews, where the participants reported how they constantly evaluate themselves in terms of improving performance. A key assumption established in the beginning of the project – that experienced interpreters would claim, in the in-depth interviews, that they practise a great deal – was not supported, to our surprise. The interpreters recounted many practice-like activities but stated that they did not actually practise. The dissertation concludes by calling for more studies on deliberate practice in interpreting, suggesting that the term “interpreter expert” should only be used with caution in scientific studies and that the particular features of expertise and deliberate practice in interpreting should be discussed. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defence the folowing papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: inPress; Paper 4: Manusckript.</p>

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal