Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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SECTION 6: Fidelity in interpretation
and translation
6.1. An experiment in fidelity
6.2. Principles of fidelity
6.3. Secondary information: an obstacle and a help
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Introduction
- Guralnik (1979), in Webster's English Dictionary, writes that
"faithfulness/fidelity" means "the quality of being accurate,
reliable, and exact."
- The issue of fidelity is probably the most basic and widely
discussed component of Translation quality.
- Fidelity in translation is passing of the message from one
language into another by producing the same effect in the other
language, (in sense and in form), in a way that the reader of the
translation would react exactly as the reader of the original text
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An experiment in fidelity
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- The participants were told the following: “ You are sitting in
the car next to the driver. At a certain point in time you see a
road sign “Paris 50 km”. Please write down exactly what you
would say in your mother tongue to the driver to tell him what
the sign say.”
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The result is that participants sharing the same mother tongue
tend to write different sentences to express it:
1. Fifty kilometers to Paris.
2. Still fifty kilometers to go.
3. We’ll be in Paris in fifty kilometers.
4. Fifty kilometers longer.
5. We’ll be there in fifty kilometers.
6. Paris is fifty kilometers from here.
Differences between sentences:
- The basic information about the distance being fifty kilometers
is found in all six sentences.
- Sentences 2, 4, 5: Paris is not mentioned.
- Sentences 2, 3, 4, 5: indicate that the speaker is moving toward
a place located fifty kilometers from the present position.
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- Sentence 3, 5: indicate that at least one person besides the
speakers is also moving toward the same destination.
- Sentence 2, 4 indicate that the speaker has already been moving
for some time, i.e. that he or she is not starting at the time of
speaking.
- Sentence 2, 3, 5 indicate that reaching Paris is a future event.
- The differences between sentences show that The same
message, expressed under identical conditions by different
Senders, tends to be expressed differently by each
individual.
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These differences may be divided into:
- Information gains: Information given in one sentence which is
not found in another or in the drawing. (the arrival in Paris
being a future event, the existence of at least one more person
besides the speaker)
- Information loses: Information not given in the sentence under
consideration although it is present in a sentence it is being
compared to or in the drawing (in sentence 2, 4, 5, Paris is not
mentioned).
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Why is information added to the Message in the
sentences?
Model: Sentence information = Message + (FI + LII + PI)
- Framing Information (FL), which is selected by the Sender
for the purpose of facilitating comprehension of the Message
by the Receiver. (“Paris” and the distance unit “km”)
- Linguistically Induced Information (LII), which is not
selected by the Sender but is made mandatory or induced by
the rules of the language used. (the future tense in sentence 3
and 5: We’ll be)
- Personal information (PI), which is neither selected by the
Sender nor induced by linguistic constraints, but it is associated
with idiosyncratic characteristics of the Sender. (a regional or
foreign accent, certain errors in grammar, or certain stylistic
and lexical choices can carry personal information.) 10
Phase two: translating a simple utterance
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The results collected are very interesting
- Participants tend to translate each sentence separately in a
more or less word-for-word fashion.
- Of more than a thousand people (experiments between 1979
and 1993), fewer than ten have given a single translation for all
sentences.
- Some participants say the Messages in the sentences are the
same, and others consider they are not.
- Participants say the Messages are the same, but they translate
the sentences differently.
- There is a tendency to translate all the information, so as not
to miss any relevant components.
- Participants taking part in the phase one (they saw the
drawing) translate each sentence differently.
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II. PRINCIPLES OF
FELIDITY
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Principles of Fidelity
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Principles of Fidelity
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Principles of Fidelity
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Principles of Fidelity
3.2. Secondary Information
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3.3 CONCLUSION
Be reformulated
Linguistically Induced Information
when there is no
adverse effect on the
communication
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In conclusion
Useful ideas about translation:
Question:
Whether to reformulate in the target language
Text information that might be detrimental to
communication,
Whether to introduce new Secondary
Information to help communication become more
effective
For example:
In a conference , a speaker may refer to someone as “
Monsieur X” giving the interpreter working into English
LII relating to the gender of X but failing to indicate
whether he should be referred to as ‘Dr. X” “ Pro. X”,
etc
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4.SECONDARY INFORMATION: An obstacle & a help
Answers by Translators :
+ It’s the Translator who decides whether it is necessary to
introduce Secondary Information in the target text or not.
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4. SECONDARY INFORMATION: An obstacle & a help
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SECONDARY INFORMATION: An obstacle & a help
+ Western languages generally discriminate betweeen singular
and plural and between various points in the past, present and
future, whereas Japanese does not necessarily do so. This does
not cause difficulties generally when Translating into Japanese,
because such LII simply disappears in the target-language
product; but when translating from Japanese, problems resulting
from the lack of background information are sometimes difficult
to solve.
+ Western languages tend to indicate explicitly the subject and
object of verbs, which is not the case in Japanese. When
translating from Japanese into a Weatern language, problems
sometimes arise because the target language requires
information about the subject and/or object of the verb, and none
is available.
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SECONDARY INFORMATION: An obstacle & a help
4.2 Interpretation vs. translation from the
Secondary Information perspective
INTERPRETATION TRANSLATION
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INTERPRETATION TRANSLATION
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INTERPRETATION TRANSLATION
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MAIN IDEAS
1. Given the same elementary informational Message in non-
verbal form, individuals tend to give it different verbal
expression. Moreover, when asked to reformulate the same
Message after even a short time, they tend to give it a
different second verbal expression.
2. These differences are at least partially uncontrolled, that
is, they do not result from the Sender’s deliberate choices.
3. Differences in the wording of the Message also result in
differences in the information the statements carry. Besides
the Message, the following types of Secondary Information
can be found:
- Framing Information;
- Linguistically Induced Information;
- Personal Information.
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