This article was downloaded by:

On: 18 February 2009

Access details: Access Details: Free Access
Publisher Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,
37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Perspectives
Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t794297831

Book Review

Online Publication Date: 01 May 2007

To cite this Article (2007)'Book Review',Perspectives,15:2,143 — 151

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13670050802153863
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13670050802153863

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or
systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or
distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents
will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses
should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,
actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly
or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
 Book Reviews
Corpora in Translator Education
Federico Zanettin, Silvia Bernardini and Dominic Stewart (eds). Manchester:
St. Jerome, 2003. Pp. 154. ISBN 1-900650-60-6 (pbk): £19.50.

This book describes a unique experience of building, developing and using

various corpora in the context of the translation classroom and grew out of
presentations at the second Conference on Corpus Use and Learning to Translate
held in Italy in November 2000. A variety of corpora are discussed, such as
monolingual corpora, comparable bilingual corpora and parallel corpora,
including DIY (virtual), specialised and reference corpora, developed speci-
fically with translation needs in mind. The main emphasis is on the use of
corpora as teaching aids in the translator-training environment. It is therefore
natural that the volume starts with an introduction by Silvia Bernardini,
Dominic Stewart and Federico Zanettin, leading experts in the field of corpus
research. As editors of the book, they have summed up all the contributions.
The first paper, by Jennifer Pearson, demonstrates how aligned parallel
Downloaded At: 23:26 18 February 2009

corpora can help trainees see what strategies professional translators usually
employ to solve different translation problems.
In the next contribution, Natalie Kübler shows how the use of various
corpora and corpus-query tools contributes to better and easier work of LSP
translators. She describes the experiment carried out and argues that the
introduction of corpora in the training of translators can radically change their
education, as ‘learners are not simply presented with evidence, but are
expected to browse corpora for themselves, without the mediation of a teacher
who ‘‘digests’’ data and offers generalizations’ (p. 10).
Belinda Maia focuses on the construction of disposable corpora on
specialised subjects using printed texts and CD-ROMs and suggests that
translator students should be trained to construct specialised corpora with the
aim of information retrieval and terminology extraction. This is especially of
vital importance for minor or ‘less prestigious’ languages, such as Portuguese,
where reliable good-quality electronic texts are less available than in major
languages.
Krista Varantola focuses on the use of disposable, ad hoc corpora in
translation. Her study is based on a workshop experiment employing the
World Wide Web as a resource for comparable corpora of electronic texts used
for lexical and textual management in translation. She concludes that modern
translational competence should also include corpus linguistic knowledge,
and prospective translators should be taught basic corpus compilation and
obtain skills such as search strategies and search word selection, assessment of
corpus adequacy and relevancy, evaluation and deductive analysis of a
corpus, etc.
The paper of Ana Frankenberg-Garcia and Diana Santos is an introduction
to the Portuguese
English bidirectional parallel corpus Compara, which is an
open-ended machine-readable collection of Portuguese
English and English

Portuguese original texts and translations. They describe its structure, basic

143
 144 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology

principles of text selection and techniques of aligning source texts and

translations.
Tony McEnery and Paul Baker found out that despite the high level of
interest from translators in working with non-indigenous European minority
languages, such as Tamil, Hindi, Urdu and Farsi, such languages are still
poorly served with corpus/language processing tools in comparison with
indigenous languages in Europe.
Of special didactic interest is the paper by Lynne Bowker and Peter
Bennison describing the development and application of the Student Transla-
tion Archive including all translations of the same source text, all translations
belonging to the same subject field, etc., and the Student Translation Tracking
System (STTS). They are used to select, manage and study the texts translated
by students. In particular, the STTS allows a teacher to extract from an archive
a corpus of translations of a given source text done by the students and
analyse them according to specific criteria, which, for instance, might be very
helpful in discussing various versions of translated text segments in a
classroom.
Although the use of corpus-based methodologies proves to be very
important in translation studies, there are, according to Kirsten Malmkjær,
Downloaded At: 23:26 18 February 2009

some doubts as to how wide the range of their uses is in solving real-life
translation problems. She argues that corpus evidence might be misleading in
some cases and stifle creative inspiration, and that it is worth exploring ways
of using corpora which may seem subversive of standard uses. As is evident
from the examples cited, her remarks concerning the need for a cautious use of
corpora in translating might be true only of literary translation, where ‘it is
sometimes necessary to break a norm instead of obeying it’ (p. 132).
All in all, the book under review provides a wealth of information about the
standard uses of various corpora as a translator’s resource. It shows how to
select electronic texts, compile corpora depending on the specific needs of a
translator and use them in solving a variety of linguistic problems. Although
the book is primarily intended for researchers and practitioners dealing with
corpora in translation education, it is also highly suitable for use as a course
textbook.

doi: 10.1080/13670050802153863 Valentin Shevchuk

Moscow State Linguistic University, Russia

A Handbook for Translator Trainers

Dorothy Kelly. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 2005. Pp. 172, with glossary
and index. ISBN 1-900650-81-9: £18.00.

Kelly’s handbook is neatly interactive, with direct questions to users in shaded

frames. It is also suitably repetitive, enacting the sound pedagogical principle
that the same point has to be made several times, from different perspectives,
for it to sink in.
Each chapter begins with a ‘summary and aims’ of what is developed in the
subsequent pages. From Chapter 2 onward this is preceded by an outline of
 Book Reviews 145

the various stages involved, not in the translating process, but in the
elaboration of a translation course, with relevant sections highlighted.1 Some
of these will be improved as trainers get more experienced. All chapters end
with suggestions for further reading.
The author is rejoicingly aware both of the variety of contexts in which
students can be trained to become translators, and of the diversity of
approaches that can be used. Some of her recommendations and comments I
fully agree with, as for instance the importance of using actual translation
commissions, or indeed of involving students in them, or the relative difficulty
of ‘general’ texts such as newspaper articles because of the element of
creativity, often involving the use of metaphors, that students have to fully
understand and learn how to recreate in their target texts.
Her first chapter, however, which sets out to introduce major approaches
and is necessarily highly synthetic, is at times slightly distorting. While she
does mention théorie du sens in connection with Delisle, it could be useful to
remind readers of some of the tenets of those proponents of Ecole de Paris
(ESIT), among whom Seleskovitch and Lederer, including a key (and mind-
boggling) notion: that of deverbalisation, the dissociation of what the text
means from words in any language.2 This being said, Delisle’s exercises on
Downloaded At: 23:26 18 February 2009

specific translation hurdles can be most useful in class. Kelly’s comment on

Robinson’s view of the translating process is somewhat intriguing. Robinson
does indeed contrast two complementary aspects, namely the freewheeling
subconscious and consequently fairly fast processing from one language into
the other, and the systematic checking and background researching. I very
much doubt whether they can be assimilated into ‘slow academic ( . . .)
learning on the one hand, and fast, real-world learning’ (p. 17), as the
distinction is not between ‘academic’ and ‘real-world’, but between which
switches we activate in our minds.
Kelly’s second chapter examines the expectations and constraints that shape
a course programme ‘upstream’, as it were. In the definition of what
translators do, given by the National Centre for Languages (UK), the final
words (‘the final translated document should read as clearly as it did in the
original’) ought in many cases be replaced by ‘should read more clearly than it
did in the original’: we are all familiar with disastrous original texts. Another
important aspect in the ‘interpersonal competences’ mentioned on pages 33
and 35 is thus ‘diplomatic skill’ (the art of explaining that the text is greatly
improved and should be revised in the original too, without hurting the
author’s feelings). This is probably what is meant by the sentence: ‘Students
will be able to (. . .) communicate their opinions in such a way as to avoid or
resolve potential conflict’ (p. 39).
In the third chapter, the author comments on the growing heterogeneity of
the student population and contrasts different profiles and expectations
among trainers. The fourth chapter considers various possible curricula,
taking the new Bologna expectations and the POSI (short for ‘Praxis-
Orientierte StudienInhalte’) recommendations into account. Chapter 5 turns
to resources, including the kind of rooms where teaching takes place,
textbooks, computer facilities, mobility programmes and work placements.
Chapter 6 presents various teaching methods; how to use group work and
 146 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology

peer tutoring, for instance. Chapter 7 (‘Sequencing’) inevitably dovetails

with Chapters 5 and 6 in its description of choices trainers have to make,
including their choice of texts. Chapter 8 discusses methods of assessment;
it suggests intelligent tips
such as asking students to provide a ‘bibliography
of resources used, with comments on usefulness, accessibility, reliability
and so on’ (p. 135), giving students the possibility to hand in a transla-
tion portfolio including a piece of market research and glossaries
and
contrasts grading references, either to a notional perfect translation or to a
statistical norm. This chapter ends on how to evaluate the course, which
leads to the final chapter on the ‘need for trainer training and trainer
competence’ (p. 150).
In many respects, this is a useful little guidebook for teachers in translation
programmes by someone who (from Chapter 2 onward) obviously knows
what she is on about.

doi: 10.1080/13670050802153889 Christine Pagnoulle

Liège, Belgium

Notes
Downloaded At: 23:26 18 February 2009

1. Identify social needs/Formulate outcomes/Identify student profile and needs/

Design course content/Identify/acquire resources (trainer training)/Design
activities/Design assessment/Design course evaluation/Implementation/Quality
enhancement.
2. I quite understand that translators have to move away from the words used in the
source text, but can meaning exist where there are no words at all?

Translation and Globalization

Michael Cronin. London: Routledge, 2003. Pp. 208. ISBN 978-0-415-27064-9
(hbk): $145.00. ISBN 978-0-415-27065-6 (pbk): $45.95.

This is one of the impressive books that immediately makes one realise the
importance of translational activities in cross-cultural communication in this
‘global’ age and that highlights the various cultural factors that have an impact
on translation studies. Michael Cronin, dean of the Joint Faculty of Humanities
and Director of the Center for Translation and Textual Studies at Dublin City
University, Ireland, presents us with the most controversial issues of language
policies in a globalised world, innovatively explores the interaction of
translation practice, the global economy, the global politics and today’s
multicultural and multilinguistic realities, and creatively offers new ways of
understanding the role of the translator in globalised societies and economies.
Drawing on numerous examples and case studies from Europe, Africa, Asia
and the Americas, the author argues that translation, and by extension
translation studies, is ideally placed to explain the two opposite transnational
movements: globalisation and anti-globalisation. Cronin shows why transla-
tion is central to debates about language and cultural identity, and why
consideration of the role of translation and translators is indispensable to
safeguarding and promoting linguistic and cultural diversity in human
history.
 Book Reviews 147

The book begins with an introduction which serves as a guide to the

comprehension of the work. Its five chapters discuss the issue of translation in
a world transformed by the forces of globalisation. In Chapter 1, ‘Translation
and the Global Economy’, the author explores the major changes in the
economy and information technology over the last three decades which have
impacted on translation. In this chapter, the author focuses on the following
points: (1) the change of economic factors will dramatically influence the
context of translation activity; (2) technological tools in translation are not
simply convenient adjuncts to the activity of translators; they are central to the
definitions of what they do and always have done; (3) the role of social factors
in conjunction with the technical dimension of translation is identified not
simply as a means of instant communication but as a channel of transmission
over time; (4) language diversity is an essential element of plurality, which
aids in understanding the functioning and consequences of translation; (5)
genuine intercultural understanding is impeded by aggressively monoglot
views of the world.
In Chapter 2, ‘Globalization and New Translation Paradigms’, the author
deals with contemporary models of translation organisation and asks what the
role of the translator might be in the 21st century. In this chapter, the author
Downloaded At: 23:26 18 February 2009

mainly investigates the concept of network and how the properties of

networks can be explored to describe features of translation activity world-
wide in the global age. Here, Cronin points to the decisive shift from
‘centralized data storage and processing to net-worked, interactive power-
sharing’ (Castells, 1996: 45). In this connection, three aspects are highlighted:
firstly, a network is capable of being extended indefinitely; it is open and
multiedged rather than closed and centralised (Kelly, 1995: 25
27). Corre-
spondingly, new elements can lead to restructuring without collapse. Secondly,
networks have insides and outsides. That is to say, the potential openness of
the network does not mean that it is open to all. The roles of the gatekeeper and
the switch
deciding who gets included in and who is excluded from
translation networks
are important, and the concern with exclusion has been
a powerful mobilising factor for the anti-globalisation movements. Thirdly, the
logic of the network is greater than the power of its individual nodes (Castells,
1996: 193). In other words, the connectedness of nodes is what permits their
flexible and dynamic response to changing situations, but it is shared goals
and values which allow for a level of structural coherence in the network itself
(p. 45).
In Chapter 3, ‘Globalization and the New Geography of Translation’, the
author investigates the changing geography of translation practice, and how
translation in Ireland has been affected by contemporary globalisation. The
author begins with global definitions and points out that the concept of
‘globalisation’ has been interpreted differently by theoreticians such as
Robertson, Friedman and Hall. The concept, as used by the author, refers to
‘a critical theory of globalization that encompasses global movements and
exchanges of people, commodities and ideas, and a politico-historical
approach to changes in global processes’ (p. 77), and the perspective of
globalisation means that ‘our translation histories are no longer confined to the
internal experience of the territorially bounded nation-state but include the
 148 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology

manifold translation activities of a country’s diaspora’ (p. 78). Cronin then

moves on to discuss the Irish experience in the context of a transnational
translation history, and the specific technical and economic reasons for
Ireland’s emergence as one of the most important centres in the world for
the translation of computer materials in the global context. The extent to which
the type of translation practised in late modern Ireland favours or militates
against cultural diversity is then considered. Taking the issue beyond Ireland,
the author analyses the censorship of translation, a phenomenon which has
often been ignored. Finally, the author points out that as more and more
people become inhabitants of global cities, the issue of translation has been
raised as part of an argument for a new, polyglossic civility.
In Chapter 4, ‘Globalization and the New Politics of Translation’, the author
explores the key features of globalisation which influence translation politics,
namely, time, the rise of supranational institutions and organisations, auto-
mation and the economic power of specific languages. The author stresses the
following three points: (1) the implications for translators with differential
access to technology in markets and societies are increasingly driven by
considerations of time; (2) the relation between automation and creativity in
translation practice are complementary rather than antagonistic; (3) the
Downloaded At: 23:26 18 February 2009

translator in the age of globalisation should be much more self-aware and

sensitive towards phenomena such as the dangers of a new ‘colonialism’ (the
spread of sameness).
In Chapter 5 ‘Translation and Minority Languages in a Global Setting’, the
author examines the importance and strategy of considering minority
languages in various areas such as training and research, other than merely
literary translation, in order to retain linguistic and cultural diversity. As the
author puts it, ‘the relative indifference of translation studies to the situation of
minority languages is considered alongside the differing responses of a
minority language to translation, seen alternatively as a threat or a godsend’
(p. 5). Viewed from a nomadic translation perspective, travelling in a minority
language is seen a way of illuminating translation dilemmas in the
contemporary world. Last but not least, the author proposes a new translation
ecology which attaches due importance to particularism and place without a
contradictory retreat to ethnocentric smugness.
In its systematic and creative analysis of the current debate on the role of
translation and translation studies, this book can be considered as an
insightful and innovative contribution to both translation studies and cultural
studies. The discussion of translation tools, localisation and hegemony, the
censorship of translation experience and minority languages, and the
foregrounding of cultural factors of the global village may all fascinate anyone
with an interest in translation studies, cultural studies and other related
academic disciplines. Most importantly, central issues such as ‘translational
activity in the context of cultural openness’, ‘diversity vs. hegemony in
translation’ and ‘who gets included in and who is excluded from translation
networks’ will inspire not merely translation theorists, but all those engaged in
translation practices.
To conclude, this book is highly stimulating. Its theoretical creativity, its case
studies and its useful ideas regarding practical translation will make it a
 Book Reviews 149

valuable reference book for both translators and people concerned with the
future of our world’s languages and cultures.

doi: 10.1080/13670050802153897 Fan Min

School of Foreign Languages and Literature
Shandong University

References
Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kelly, K. (1995) Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-biological Civilization. Menlo Park, CA:
Addison-Wesley.

Basics of Translation Studies

Cay Dollerup. Iasi, Romania: Institutul European, 2006. Pp. 260. ISBN 973-611-
412-0 (pbk): t18.00 (including postage).

Translation Studies is one of the most dynamic topical spheres of present-day

linguistics, the reason for which is seen in the processes of globalisation and
Downloaded At: 23:26 18 February 2009

internationalisation that brought about a translation business boom. Doller-

up’s work is written for these young translators as well as young teachers and
Translation Studies students who have recently begun or are planning to begin
to follow this challenging, though ‘servile path’, as Nabokov (1959: 97) once
termed the translation trade. The book is actually an elaboration of a distance
course for the New York University students (p. 8).
The scholarly innovativeness of the work lies no doubt in a quite successful
attempt to present within a single volume both the most renowned Translation
Studies concepts and to offer a concise, but rather comprehensive, excursion
into its history. The author points out in particular that interpreting must have
existed ever since the first contacts between humans speaking different
languages, while translation is approximately 6000 years old (pp. 66, 69). It
stands to reason that interpreting, that is oral rendition of utterances, came
first, as writing and other adjacent activities, translation for one, originated on
the basis of oral speech much much later. There is plenty of exciting and
relevant information from the history of translation. For example, Dollerup
mentions that Alexander the Great ‘used interpreters on his campaigns. ( . . .)
The Roman administration had no less than 130 interpreters for dealing with
the Caucasian rulers alone’. He also points out that the number of interpreters
considerably increased during the Napoleonic wars because there were ‘young
men of the European bourgeoisie in various countries, who had learnt French
as part of their education in the 18th century and who were keen to test it, to
mediate, to interpret’ between the local population and French troops (pp.
68
69). The author’s periodisation of (European) translation history is also
noteworthy: the first period lasted until circa 1530, i.e. until the Lutheran
Reformation; the second one from circa 1530 until 1790, the epoch of the
French Revolution; the third period lasted from the French Revolution to the
Second World War: 1789
1939/40; the fourth period went from 1945 to circa
1970; the fifth one from circa 1970 to circa 1990; and finally, the sixth period has
 150 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology

lasted from 1990 until the present day. As it follows, the first period was the
longest. Isn’t this due to scarce information on the period as compared, for
example, to the shortest
the fifth one? Anyway, Cay Dollerup’s periodisation
serves its purpose.
It is theoretically relevant that the author provides new translators with
scholarly linguistic information. He writes about the dynamics and instability
of cultures and languages, about language families
dealing mostly with the
Indo-European one
and especially touches upon the history of the English
language. This kind of knowledge is really important for translators, as many
of them badly lack a linguistic background. However, I cannot help objecting
to the author’s classification of languages, where he places Estonian in the
Balto-Slavic group (p. 26), which in fact can hardly be true, as the language
belongs to a Finno-Ugric group. I do believe it is merely a misprint in this case.
The author must have meant Latvian and Lithuanian.
On the same page, Dollerup mentions that ‘we may talk of British English,
American English, Australian English, etc. as different languages’ (p. 26). I am
not at all sure that it is worthwhile to consider these variants different
languages. To be classified as a language, a variant has to differ systematically
from another language (variant) on at least one feature, like the presence of an
Downloaded At: 23:26 18 February 2009

extra case for nouns in Ukrainian as compared to Russian. Differences in lexis

and pronunciation alone are not sufficient to classify language variants as
independent separate languages.
The very notion of translation is defined by the author as ‘any material
which is presented in a linguistic form in a source language and is realized in a
linguistic form in a target language’ (p. 81). This position is really praise-
worthy in a definitionless desert of scores of papers that manage to go without
the definition of the primary notion at all. Dollerup also mentions the
following fact that is quite often overlooked by translatologists: today most
translation activity does not take place between nations, but within nations.
Many countries have ethnic minorities who do not speak the official language,
and for that reason a great deal of translation takes place within individual
countries and is meant for these ethnic minorities.
One of the main perspectives of the book under review is that nobody and
nothing is perfect. The author is of the opinion that there is no such thing as an
ideal translator and a perfect translation (p. 64), which I believe is true for a
number of reasons, e.g. due to cultural and linguistic asymmetry. To support
the author’s view, I would like to refer to Ortega y Gasset (1991: 346), who
once wrote as follows:
Every language is a special equation between what is said and what is
unsaid. Every nation keeps silent about one thing to be able to say some
other, since it is impossible to say everything. That is why it is so difficult
to translate: it is all about saying something in a language that this
language is inclined to keep silent of. (my translation)
The book is arranged as a practical aid, easy and convenient to work with:
each chapter opens up with an abstract, followed by learning objectives. The
text of the chapter is subdivided into sections. Finally, a short summary ends
up the chapter.
 Book Reviews 151

The topics discussed by Dollerup are of undeniable interest both for

practising and future translators. The author considers, among other themes,
The Problem of Western Centrality in Translation Studies, Modes of Transla-
tion in the Modern World, The Nature of Translation, Translation Approaches,
The Translator in Society, Synchrony and Diachrony in Translation Work,
Source Texts and Translation Today, etc. The practical tendency is one of the
major valuable aspects of this work.
The book gains my most favourable references. It may boast of deeply
professional items as well as precise and logically immaculate narrative. The
book is topical, relevant and up-to-date. It will prove a perfect manual for
newcomers in translation and will surely be of assistance to those who have
been working in the field for quite a few years and would like to refresh their
theory.

doi: 10.1080/13670050802153921 Vladimir Khairoulline

Institute of Law,
Ufa, Russia

References
Downloaded At: 23:26 18 February 2009

Nabokov, V. (1959) The servile path. In R.A. Brower (ed.) On Translation (pp. 97
110).
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ortega y Gasset, J. (1991) Nishcheta i blesk perevoda [The misery and splendour
of translation]. In J. Ortega y Gasset, Chto takoe filosofia? [What Philosophy is About]
(pp. 336
353). Moscow: Nauka.