The main argument of the article is that literary translation assumed different roles in émigré periodicals: from serving educational purposes, through amplifying the diaspora’s cultural identity, to ...providing entertainment to their readership, and that all these roles conformed to the political and ideological orientation and positioning of the newspaper and its editors. The article focuses on the newspaper Prosveta (The Enlightenment), a left-of-centre progressive newspaper published by the Slovene diaspora in the U. S., and the presence of literary translations in the period from its establishment in 1916 to 1933 when it began appearing only five days a week and its circulation began to fall. We analyzed 5273 issues of Prosveta, identified all literary translations, and classified them into three categories. The results show that the choice of authors whose works were translated and published in the newspaper reflects the ideological positioning of the editors and newspaper, and blurs the distinction between two categories of translated works: between the works selected for the education and those for the entertainment of Prosveta’ s readership.
The article responds to the existing political claims that translation and interpreting reduce the incentive of recent immigrants to learn the language(s) of the host country and thereby impede their ...integration. To verify these claims, quantitative and qualitative research was conducted among asylum seekers in Slovenia, i.e. a group of recent immigrants who have access to free interpreting and translation services and free courses in the dominant language of the host country. A questionnaire was used to gather quantitative data on the language profiles of 127 current and former residents of the asylum seeker centres in Slovenia, while qualitative data were obtained through semi-structured interviews conducted with a representative group of 38 asylum seekers. The results show that all surveyed migrants had a positive attitude towards the host country language and that all of the interviewed migrants who had been in the host country for 7 months or more, regardless of their educational attainment, also took the state-funded course of the host country language. Additionally, although the provision of translation and interpreting is recognised as essential in high-risk situations, it is not the preferred communication strategy of the migrants, and therefore does not hinder their functional linguistic inclusion.
The article attempts to determine whether translation errors (in particular semantic and stylistic ones) in translator-training settings are predominantly the result of translation directionality, ...i.e. of the fact that the student translators are translating into their L2 and that their language competence in L2 is not as strong as in their L1, or the result of poorly developed thematic and information-mining competences. In order to determine which competence is decisive for the quality of translation output, 112 translations by 14 student translators in the final year of the study at MA level created under experimental conditions were assessed for accuracy (semantic content) and stylistic quality (register and collocations). The students were asked to translate four texts (two on a general, familiar topic and two on a specialized, unfamiliar topic) into their L1 and into L2. The results obtained by using an adapted version of an item-based evaluation method show that factors other than directionality impact translation quality more decisively, among them the level of L2 proficiency and the broadness of the translator's general knowledge.
The book Post-Socialist Translation Practices explores how Communism and Socialism, through their hegemonic pressure, found expression in translation practice from the moment of Socialist revolution ...to the present day. Based on extensive archival research in the archives of the Communist Party and on the interviews with translators and editors of the period the book attempts to outline the typical and defining features of the Socialist translatorial behaviour by re-reading more than 200 translations of children's literature and juvenile fiction published in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). Despite the variety of different forms of censorship that the translators in all Socialist states were subject to, the book argues that Socialist translation in different cultural and linguistic environments, especially where the Soviet model tried to impose itself, purged the translated texts of the same or similar elements, in particular of the religious presence. The book also traces how ideologically manipulated translations are still uncritically reprinted and widely circulated today.
Translation Studies is challenged by Translation practitioners because of its alleged irrelevance and ineffectiveness. While it is difficult to quantify its 'scientific' contribution, it offers a ...non-negligible amount of research into relevant topics and has definitely influenced Translator training. Moreover, as an academic activity, it offers a social contribution to the Translators' community by helping it raise its status and by facilitating the exchange of experience and information, all of this at a low cost for society.
Translation into a non-mother tongue or inverse translation, especially of literary texts, has always been frowned upon within Translation Studies in Western cultures and regarded by literary ...scholars and linguists as an activity of dubious worth, doomed to fail. The study, which received an award from EST in 2001, sets out to challenge the established view and to critically question some of the axiomatic assumptions of Western theorists. Its challenge is supported by extensive empirical research involving reader response to translations of specific literary texts. The conclusion reached is that the quality of the translation, its fluency and acceptability in the target language environment depend primarily on the as yet undetermined individual abilities of the particular translator, his/her translation strategy and knowledge of the source and target cultures, and not on his/her mother tongue or the direction in which s/he is translating.
Abstract
This article compares the professional profile of community interpreters to that of a particular group of intercultural mediators who work as non-professional, untrained interpreters, mainly ...in healthcare settings. Through a textual comparison of 13 deontological documents for community interpreters and intercultural mediators, this article investigates differences in the ethical positioning of these two profiles. The results show that while the codes of ethics of community interpreters tend to emphasize impartiality, the documents defining the emerging profile of intercultural mediators position advocacy more prominently. Beyond the differences in ethical positioning, the article also considers other reasons for the formation of this new profile and outlines several challenges related to the partial overlap between the two profiles, which include distorted definitions of the interpreter’s competences and performance, conceptual confusion in the research literature, and mismatched expectations of language services consumers.
It is argued in the article that despite the relatively strong presence of English in Slovenia, the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) alone does not guarantee access to quality public services. ...To supplement the use of ELF interpreting support is needed, in particular in high-risk situations. A step in this direction was the certification of a national vocational qualification for community interpreters for Albanian in 2020. Since at the same time a new vocational profile for intercultural mediators was created, which also aims to assist the inclusion of migrants in the Slovene society, we investigated the differences between these two profiles by comparing the competences defined in both. The results show that despite some overlaps Slovene vocational standards for both professions differ significantly: while transfer and linguistic competences are central to community interpreter’s profile, conflict resolution and mediation competence figure more prominently in the intercultural mediator’s profile.
It’s so vital to learn Slovene Pokorn, Nike K; Čibej, Jaka
Language problems & language planning,
01/2018, Letnik:
42, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Short-time migrants, who stay in the host country from one to 12 months, use mediation strategies including lingua francas, public-service interpreting and translation, translation technologies, ...intercomprehension, and learning the host country’s dominant language. The choices made by asylum seekers in Slovenia, a country of transit for the majority of asylum seekers, are analyzed on the basis of questionnaires answered by 127 current and former residents of the Slovene asylum seeker centers in 2016, followed up by semi-structured interviews with a representative group of 34 asylum seekers. The results show that the majority of newly arrived migrants regard the use of lingua francas as a helpful but not desired long-term strategy. They define host-country language learning as the most desirable strategy for linguistic and social inclusion. Surprisingly, they are reluctant to use translation technologies and interpreters because they either doubt the accuracy of the transfer or they consider such mediation (interpreting in particular) a hindrance to their independence.
Abstract
The article focuses on the issue of spatial positioning of healthcare interpreters. Contemporary research and guidelines for healthcare interpreters recommend either a triadic position or ...parallel positioning, or else suggest that the position of the interpreter should be defined primarily by the situation. Based on the responses gathered by a nationwide online questionnaire sent to interpreters who work in healthcare settings in the Republic of Slovenia, the article establishes that a triangular position is the spatial positioning the untrained interpreters working in healthcare settings most often assume and find most appropriate. The interpreters prefer this position because they believe that primary role should be granted to the patient and that the interpreters should be regarded as mere conduits, and second, that there is a considerable gap between what the interpreters think they should do and what they actually do. The article concludes with some proposals how to narrow this gap.
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