Postgraduate Diploma

in Translation and Interpreting

ATS 5015
Contemporary Theories in Translation Studies

Umberto Eco in Mouse or Rat: Translation as Negotiation,

makes it clear that translation is always a shift, not between
two languages but between two cultures or two
encyclopaedias. A translator must take into account rules that
are not strictly linguistic but, broadly speaking, cultural.
Eco's discussion of negotiation and interpretation within the
acts of translating and interpreting has proved to be a key
notion. Discuss with reference to Eco's and / or Bassnett's
work on translation.

♦ Lecturer: Dr Clare Vassallo Thake

♦ Student: Kenneth Grima

1
"If language were simply a nomenclature for a set of universal concepts, it
would be easy to translate from one language to another … But … languages
are not nomenclatures … the concepts … of one language may differ
radically from those of another … Each language articulates or organises the
world differently. Languages do not simply name existing categories, they
articulate their own."
(Culler 1976:21-22)

as quoted by Baker (2003)

2
Contents

1. Defining translation 1

2. A culture-bound activity 1
2.1 Language and culture 1

3. Interpretation and negotiation 2

4. The translator 2
4.1 Equivalence 2
4.2 Shifting 3
4.3 SL culture & TL culture 3
4.4 Context 3
4.5 Guessing 4
4.6 Preserving information 4
4.7 Other strategies 5

5. Conclusion 5

Appendix 6
References 8

Kindly note use of the following abbreviations:

ST: Source Text

TT: Target Text
SL: Source Language
TL: Target Language
L1: Language 1 (source language)
L2: Language 2 (target language)

3
“… translation is always a shift, not between two languages but
between two cultures - or two encyclopaedias.”

(Eco 2003:82)

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