Rivista internazionale di tecnica della traduzione n.15 - 2013

This article deals with the complex relationship between intertextuality and translation, analyzed not only from a theoretical point of view, but also by adopting an empirical approach through the study of some intertextual phenomena observed in one of Hélène Cixous’ works, Manhattan. Lettres de la préhistoire. After an overview on the concept of intertextuality, which was introduced in the Sixties by structuralist critics, and a section about the different ways of conceiving the connections between intertextual references and translation (translation as a characteristic feature of the source text or as a form of intertextuality par excellence), the paper will present some strategies that the translator can resort to in order to forestall, or at least to reduce, the inevitable meaning loss and to guarantee an appropriate output. For example, we will mention literal translation, the use of paratextual elements, the substitution or even the deletion of intertextual references. Finally, we will consider some cases of intertextual references contained in Cixous’ text, in order to illustrate, on the one hand, the choices that the translator has taken during his work and, on the other, underline the importance of these references within the framework of Manhattan.

This paper analyses the issue of Culture-Bound Elements (CBE) and their rendition in simultaneous interpretation. It focuses on the 2012 US Presidential Debates between the democratic President Barack Obama and the republican candidate Mitt Romney. The analysed interpretations were provided by four television channels which aired the debates live: RaiNews24 and SkyTG24 in Italy, Canal24Horas in Spain and the Spanish-speaking broadcasting company Univisión in the USA. All the video material was transcribed and added to CorIT, the Television Interpreting Corpus of the University of Trieste. The paper begins with a discussion of the features of media interpreting compared to conference interpreting. The second part discusses the importance of culture in shaping and understanding a message, culture- bound elements, their nature and the strategies that interpreters can adopt to deal with them. The third part presents the debates, the interpreting teams and the transcription process carried out. The fourth section offers the analysis of some examples of how the interpreters dealt with the CBEs in the case study. Finally, the last section contains statistical data on the strategies used by the four teams and the conclusions reached on their overall success in dealing with CBEs.

This paper investigates the vocabulary used by novice vs. more experienced translators from a longitudinal perspective, so as to describe its nature, distribution and evolution. Data have been gathered in the framework of an empirical longitudinal product-oriented study which investigates the development of translation competence in a sample of novice and (more) experienced translators, whose performances are monitored over three years. Thanks to the specific research design adopted, the variables under investigation can be analysed both synchronically and diachronically, so that any discrepancies in the nature and distribution of the vocabulary used by novices vs. professionals can be observed. Such twofold perspective allows for a thorough investigation of the nature of translators’ vocabulary and its evolution as they gain experience and expertise. Finally, a possible relation between the textual trends observed in more experienced translators as opposed to novices and the participants’ assumed level of competence will be suggested.

The translation of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure into English, published in 2014, represents a way of explaining the functioning of the Italian criminal procedure to a wide English-speaking audience. Given the different varieties of English available, the translation team chose European English as the target language of the translation. After a brief overview of the central role played by English in the European supranational and international context, the paper presents a classification of translation equivalents used for the translation of the Code and illustrates it by concrete examples. Such classification is based on two criteria, namely the availability of European English translation equivalents in the reference corpus of European documents used by the translation team and the degree of embeddedness of the underlying concept in the national legal system. The resulting classification is threefold and comprises European English translation equivalents for Italian terms designating legal concepts shared by both national and supranational/international legal systems, European English translation equivalents for Italian terms designating legal concepts embedded in the national legal system only, and Italian terms designating legal concepts embedded in the national legal system with no European English translation equivalent.

Some non-professional subtitling communities have succeeded in tailoring structures where newcomers learn from their peers using collaboration as a key to develop the necessary skills. These environments are compatible with the collaborative translator-training environment promoted by the social constructivist approach. This study intends to shed light on how non-professional collaborative environments could be used in translator training. An experiment was carried out in 2013 using Amara and aRGENTeaM, two non-professional subtitling communities, as training environments for seventeen undergraduate students of translation at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain. Each student was asked to translate for both Amara and aRGENTeaM, and to adapt to their translation guidelines and time constraints. The data was collected over three weeks. Questionnaires were designed to collect data on the participants’ opinions regarding non-professional subtitling and its quality, the participants’ attitude towards the phenomenon and the possibility of using these environments for translator training. Results show that participants see non-professional translation activities as engaging projects that could provide them with skills they will need in the future if they decide to become translators.