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Due to time and space constraints, subtitling is often subject to reduction, which in turn may lead to information loss and hamper comprehension of subtitles. However, little research has been done to investigate the potential conflict between subtitle reduction and comprehension. Therefore, with the aim of exploring both ‘cohesion in text’ and ‘coherence in mind’, a two-phase study was designed to investigate textual reduction and audience reception with particular reference to connectives (e.g. moreover, but, because, and at first). More specifically, the present study aims to find to out how connectives are translated in different genres of factual TV programmes and whether and to what extent their reduction may affect audience comprehension. The first part of this study involved textual analysis of source texts and target texts of two TV genres: scripted documentaries and ‘spontaneous’ (i.e. unscripted) travel programmes. The occurrences of connectives in STs and TTs were manually counted and statistically analysed. The results showed that the addition or omission of connectives was related to the difference between these two genres: documentaries were translated more explicitly with more connectives translated and added, while a travel programme were translated more implicitly with more connectives omitted. The second part of this study involved a questionnaire survey using four English clips (two scripted documentaries and two spontaneous travel programmes from Discovery Channel) to test the perception of 158 participants on the reduction of connectives in Chinese subtitles. The results of the survey showed the participants seemed to have no difficulty comprehending Chinese subtitles when most English connectives were intentionally not translated. That is, the omission of connectives did not seem to affect their perception on the coherence of subtitles, which may be explained by contextual factors such as register (field, tenor, and mode), pragmatic principles (e.g. the cooperative principle and Gricean maxims), and multi-semiotic features of subtitling (e.g. co-presence of subtitles, image, and sound). In other words, the present study shows that reduction in subtitling could be justified from the perspective of context in subtitling. These findings can be further applied to the teaching and assessment of subtitling.

Translation/interpreting has long been one of the media for spreading and (re)shaping ideology in the battlefield of ‘power’. The inextricable relationships between power and translation/interpreting also contribute to hegemony and resistance demonstrated through translation and interpreting or by translators and interpreters. While the link between ideology and translation in unequal power relations has almost been fully disclosed in translation studies, the same issue in interpreting remains much less explored. To address ideology issue in interpreting, this study chooses to put such research in the setting of the status quo across the Taiwan Strait, with China and Taiwan on either side. China, as an overwhelming hegemony in terms of politics, economy and culture, has always reiterated its One China policy on international occasions, insisting that Taiwan, an island off southeast China, has long been part of it. Yet, it is undeniable that Taiwan and China, in both of which Mandarin is used as the official language and Chinese culture is practiced and developed, are two separate political and economic entities at present. In light of the power inequality and linguistic resemblance between the two entities, this study uses ‘hegemony’ and ‘resistance to hegemony’ as two analytical dimensions in examining whether signs of hegemony or resistance to hegemony are embodied in simultaneous interpreting renditions of the student interpreters from China and from Taiwan through critical discourse analysis (CDA). By uncovering the embodiment of political ideologies in simultaneous renditions of Mandarin-speaking student interpreters and how national identities are discursively constructed through SI, this study hopes to raise awareness of interpreting as a site for different ideologies and identities to compete against one another in relations between hegemony and resistance and provide some constructive thoughts of investigating the relationship between ideology and interpreting in a scientific and systematic manner.

This thesis explores the interpreting and translation policies of two governmental agencies and two voluntary sector organisations active in the asylum application process in the UK. In order to reach a more informed understanding of the factors which come to bear on the articulation of social policy. It considers whether relationships emerge between discourses inherent to the institutional(ised) interpreting and translation policies and wider discourses of immigration, social in/exclusion and multiculturalism, as interpreting policy is potentially used to enforce specific ideologies. Bourdieusian sociological perspectives are utilised to establish a theoretical framework in which social agents position themselves in relation to each other, institutions, and discourse on the basis of habitus, field and capital. Critical Discourse Analysis methodology enables the institutional(ised) discourse that emerges from the policy texts to be linked at three separate, but intricately connected, levels. The policies are analysed to reveal the identities and relations between the agents involved in the interpreting service provision, how discourse if produced on the basis of these relationships and finally the relationship of these discourses to wider social and political discourses.

The use of the dictionary and translation are both common language experiences. The dictionary is an indispensable tool to translating. Yet dictionary skills are grossly neglected in translator training, which assumes that students have acquired all the necessary knowledge and skills before training. In order to reveal the situation in Hong Kong, this case study attempts to investigate the dictionary use pattern of 107 translation students from five local universities for Chinese to English translation, and the dictionary consultation process of four respondents. Triangulation methods were employed: questionnaire survey interview, think-aloud protocol, and performance exercise. A coding system for think-aloud protocols has been adopted from Thumb (2004), with modifications for Chinese-English dictionary use for production. Results found that most of the respondents had not been trained to use the Chinese-English dictionary, and that they had difficulties in using it for Chinese to English translation. Curricular assessment discovered a gap between student needs in dictionary skills and the curriculum. Pedagogical recommendations are made, and the notion of Dictionary Use Competence is proposed for translation students, while dictionary skills should be treated as a learning strategy across the curriculum from the primary to university levels. The study contributes to the teaching and learning of dictionary skills, with special relevance to Chinese-English translation, and to the research on dictionary use for production in terms of the language combination of Chinese/English, and to the method of introspection.

This thesis is devoted to the investigation of translational aspects of idiomatic meaning. Although plentiful in everyday language, idioms seem to constitute a particularly intriguing issue for translators primarily due to their semantic and syntactic idiosyncrasies. The main objective of this study is to answer two interrelated questions with reference to English-Greek, namely how idioms are translated and which parameters influence translators’ choices. More specifically, this thesis aims at examining the translation strategies employed in the treatment of idioms in the Greek financial press. To this end, 121 instances of idioms were examined, taken from a 101,202-word sample of 2009 news material translated into Greek (Source Text: The Economist newspaper, Target Text: the Sunday edition of Kathimerini newspaper). A new idiom classification was proposed distinguishing idioms into inward and outward, the former subdivided into cognitively and affectively-oriented idioms and the latter into general outward and business idioms. The results obtained indicate that business idioms accounted for the biggest percentage in the corpus examined whereas in terms of idiom-translation strategy, omission was the preferred strategy for both inward and outward idioms. With respect to the parameters that influence translators’ choices, it was argued that in adhering to idiomatic meaning, translators were prompted to take into account idiom and genre-related parameters. On the other hand, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, cognitive and genre parameters gained prominance when there was idiom literalization. Lastly, idiom omission seemed to rely on pragmatic, cognitive and genre parameters whereas idiom compensation largely depended on pragmatic and genre ones. The study concludes with the suggestion that an awareness of idioms’ sensitivity to genre conventions and a realization of the multiplicity of parameters that affect the choice of idiom-translation strategy are essential for appropriateness to be met in Greek financial news translation, bearing consequences for both translation theory and translator training.

This thesis explores the possibility of juxtaposing Critical Discourse Analysis with Descriptive-Explanatory Translation Studies and contextualized literary Stylistics by relating translated literary texts as product and process to prevailing ideologies and power relations in the target society and also to its censorship laws. Two major sets of arguments are posed in this regard. Firstly, Translation Studies needs expansion which can be achieved by the integration of a critical social theory. Secondly, literary texts, whether original or translated, can offer as much information about the relationship between ideology, power relations and discourse as non-literary texts. Based upon the intrinsic relationship of prevailing ideologies, power relations and censorship laws to translators' choices, this thesis tests the data, which consist of Turkish translations of taboos in translated literary texts, to see whether it might help researchers relate translations to constraining factors of social origin, and thus make discoveries about the situation of translation in a particular society. A socio-cognitive theoretical framework with an emphasis on the dialectical relationship between society and discourse is employed to this end. The theoretical approaches under consideration for their applicability are Ruth Wodak's discourse-historical CDA model and Teun A. van Dijk's socio-cognitive CDA model. The thesis employs a diachronic retrospective methodology based on Gideon Toury's comparative model (1980, 1995a) which allows a reconstruction of the regularities in translators' choices. The findings gathered from the analysis of the data show that translators' choices are governed by socio-political conditions, and thus the position of translation is determined by the same constraining factors. The findings also demonstrate that literature, be it original or translated, cannot be isolated from society and from societal predispositions. In the light of the findings, the thesis offers the socio-cognitive diachronic CDA framework as a new model which might be a good theoretical resource in the analysis of translated (literary) discourse within the framework of ideology and power relations