The Traces of Linguistics in Translation Studies
Tuğçe Ören, Fatma Emel ErgunFor many years, translation studies has been considered a sub-field under linguistics, despite the awareness of researchers in the field that the interaction between the two disciplines is interdisciplinary instead of hierarchical. The subject of translation studies is translation, whereas the subject of linguistics is language. Nevertheless, translation occurs through languages, and this fact leads to a natural interaction between the two fields. In this context, this study aims to determine the traces of the concepts and methods of structural linguistics and text-linguistics on translation-oriented text classification, Skopos theory, polysystem theory, and interpretive theory of meaning. Examples and suggestions for translation were then introduced for the acquisition or improvement of the concepts and methods for academic translation education.
Çeviribilimde Dilbilim İzleri
Tuğçe Ören, Fatma Emel ErgunUzun yıllar dilbilimin alt alanı olarak ele alınan çeviribilimin, dilbilim ile arasında alt-üst ilişkisinden çok disiplinlerarası bir etkileşim içinde olduğu alanın araştırmacıları tarafından bilinmektedir. Çeviribilimin konusu çeviri dilbilimin konusu ise dildir, çeviri diller üzerinden gerçekleşmektedir ve bu durum iki alan arasındaki etkileşimi doğal kılar. Bu bağlamda çalışmada yapısal dilbilimin, metindilbilimin kavram ve yöntemlerinin Çeviri Odaklı Metin Sınıflandırması, Skopos Kuramı, Çoğuldizge Kuramı ve Yorumlayıcı Anlam Kuramı üzerinde izleri saptanmaya çalışılmıştır. Ardından somut çeviri örnekleriyle kavram ve yöntemler aktarılarak akademik çeviri eğitiminde bu kavram ve yöntemlerin kazandırılmasına ya da geliştirilmesine ilişkin öneriler sunulmuştur.
The art of translation has existed since the beginning of human history. However, before translation studies became a discipline in and of itself, translations were investigated by scholars from various disciplines, such as comparative literature, foreign language education, and linguistics. Therefore, the concepts and methods of translation have been shaped within the framework of these disciplines. The current study focuses on the relationship between translation and linguistics, and assumes that, especially during the 1950s and the 1960s, studies on translations were dominated by the linguistic perspective. In these studies, the research on translation had been reduced to the equivalence problem, whereas the complex and multidimensional structure of translation had been ignored. In addition, translation practices in applied linguistics have been insufficient to explain translation phenomena. This fact contributed to the handling of translation in its own reality. When translation studies became an independent discipline during the 1970s, scholars considered translation within its own reality. Thus, efforts were made to develop its theories and methods. Nevertheless, this development does not indicate that translation studies is close to interdisciplinary relations. The subject of translation studies is translation, whereas the subject of linguistics is language. Thus, interaction between the two disciplines is only natural because translatorial activity has an inclusive relationship with language. Based on this view, this study aims to question the performativity of linguistic concepts and methods in translation theory. The theoretical basis of this study is two-fold. First, the concepts and methods of language/speech, system, value, lexical field, and equivalence that exist in translational theories explicitly or implicitly are explained within the framework of structuralism theory. In time, however, studies at the word and sentence levels have been conducted through text. Thus, text-linguistics has been established, which highlighted the importance of the semantic, communicative, and functional dimensions of linguistics. Studies on translations that address texts also prioritize communication and communication conditions, such that the methods of text-linguistics can be used in translation descriptions and applications. This aspect leads the second part of the theoretical basis. For the abovementioned reasons, the study also examined the contexts and methods of text-linguistics, such as text type classification and textuality criterion, which are assumed effective in translation. The corpus of the study constitutes of translation-oriented text classification, Skopos theory, polysystem theory, and interpretive theory of meaning. The study is descriptive in nature and analyzes this corpus in light of the methods and concepts of structuralism theory and text-linguistics. The findings indicate that certain linguistic concepts and methods were included in the theories of translation. Moreover, the results were demonstrated on examples from various translations because the aforementioned methods and concepts guide students in their translations, and their demonstrations enrich the study. Further, the study provided suggestions for the acquisition or improvement of the concepts and methods in academic translation education. Lastly, general inferences were made regarding the study.
