Reviewed by Ferit Kılıçkaya, Middle East Technical University
This book contains brief overview articles, covering various issues in translation. The first article, ‘Advertising translation’, focuses on the pragmatic function of advertising material, product-oriented approaches, and the impact of electronic media. The second article analyzes translation from the agent’s viewpoint. The article that follows provides bibliographies used in translation studies. The following article discusses several issues pertaining to collaboration in translation, and an article entitled ‘Comparative approaches to translation’ touches on issues such as corpus, conceptual apparatus, and method.
In the article ‘Cultural approaches’, the author presents approaches to translations from several perspectives. The following three articles focus on the direction of transfer and how translators work in their native language, on how domestication and foreignization play a pivotal role in translation studies, and on the role of major approaches in translation evaluation. In the article ‘Hybridity and translation’, the author investigates how culture and the notion of hybridity can be bridged.
The article ‘Institutional translation’ focuses on how the concept of intuition can be realized in translational studies, and the following article’ presents linguistic theories of translation. An article on literary translation deals with sociolinguistic and discourse issues in literature, and an article on medical translation and interpreting focuses on the scientific and technical issues of medical translation. Another article investigates the use of metaphor in translation, citing Theo Hermans’ view of translation as mirror or reflection.
In the article, ‘Methodology in translation studies’ practices and contexts in data type in translation research are analyzed. The following article focuses on how translation theory can contribute to the study of minority languages and vice versa. Another article provides a brief history of the notion of a natural translator/interpreter. In ‘Neurolinguistics and interpreting’ the role of neurolinguistics in understanding the task of processing two languages simultaneously is discussed. The following three articles address the significance of orality for translation, the issue of handling verbal and visual material in translation, and the challenges of translating poetry.
The article ‘Pseudotranslation’ deals with texts which ‘resemble’ translations, and ‘Realia’ focuses on strategies to overcome the challenges imposed by culture-specific references. The following article investigates the issues that interpreters face when they are physically distant from where speeches are given. Also included is an article focusing on interpreters’ social ranking and group membership, followed by an article addressesing the status of translators in academia and on the market. Another article provides an overview of how stylistics helps translation to go ‘beyond the obvious in a text’ (154).
The author of the article ‘Theory of translatorial action’ discusses how translation has benefited from several approaches. The article ‘Translation policy’ highlights how translators’ strategies are structured in and beyond official settings. The following article discusses three types of translation problems: source-oriented, target-oriented, and process-oriented. The author of the following article, in a discussion of translation universals, investigates whether any aspect of the source text differs from the translated version. The final article focuses on challenges that emerge with wordplay in the source language.
The articles in this book constitute a well-structured reference book for anyone seeking an introduction to a variety of issues pertaining to translation studies. Readers will find the references and further reading sections particularly useful.