TYPES OF TRANSLATION AND TRANSLATION PROFESSION: RELEVANCE AND PROSPECTS

ВИДЫ ПЕРЕВОДОВ И ПЕРЕВОДЧЕСКИХ ПРОФЕССИЙ: АКТУАЛЬНОСТЬ И ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ

Лебедев Егор Юрьевич

студент, Ульяновский государственный технический университет, РФ, г. Ульяновск

Жукова Юлия Владимировна

научный руководитель, старший преподаватель, Ульяновский государственный технический университет, РФ, г. Ульяновск

Translation is the activity of interpreting the meaning of a text in one language and creating a new equivalent text in another language. To be exact, translation is considered as a form of intercultural communication which involves the cooperation of many agents. In recent years, increased attention has been focused on the people and institutions involved with translation. One of the main research areas that has recently emerged is the investigation of the link between the sociology of professions and the status of translation as an occupation. This study aims to determine the current challenges to establishing a professional status for translators in the Russian Federation.

A real exit to a different culture and its representatives is the fact that the phenomenon of manifestation of multilingualism becomes an everyday reality. This makes language learning significant. “In recent years, the status of foreign languages ​​in Russia has grown significantly, since the dynamics of the political, economic and cultural life of our country as well as the goals, directions and scale of transformations cause an ever-increasing need for citizens who practically know non-native languages” [3].

The emergence of translation as a special type of human activity dates back to ancient times. Written manuscripts of translation were first mentioned in Egypt in the 15th century BC. These were diplomatic correspondence translated from ancient Egyptian into Akkadian cuneiform writing. However, according to multiple studies, its main tasks were information and communication. Over time, translation studies has witnessed a move away from the mere consideration of texts as the products of the translation process towards the view of translation as a social practice which involves the cooperation of many agent [12]. Hence, a research domain which has gained popularity in the field of translation studies is the study of the status of the translation profession in different contexts. Some prominent translation scholars have been optimistic towards the evolution of the translation profession. Gentzler claims that due to the revolution of functionalist theory, translators are now regarded as high-profile cultural mediators [7]. Chesterman also believes that translators are not looked down upon by clients anymore [6]. However, less optimistic scholars point to a number of issues such as a trend towards deprofessionalisation [11], the translators’ voluntary servitude, quality downturn due to lowest bid market economics [10], and the competition from the emerging technology [8].

In the context of dynamically changing living conditions and needs, the question of interpreters and translators’ profession relevance in the age of cutting-edge technology arises. To answer this question, it is necessary to study the demand for interpreters and translators in the labor market and features that affect the profession under consideration during technological progress.

Despite globalization, digitalization, penetration of artificial intelligence technologies into all spheres of life, robotization and production automation that our world faces today the humanities has a complex role to play, among which a foreign language takes an important part as a multi-level communication tool. Today, there is an increasing demand for specialists who speak foreign languages fluent. Specialists ready to build establish intercultural scientific ties, take part in international conferences, study foreign experience in a certain field of science, technology, and culture as well as establish business and partnership contacts are required. “A foreign language for a specialist is not only a factor of professional self-determination but also an opportunity to learn a foreign culture, to cultivate a sense of tolerance, i.e. a sense of understanding and acceptance of other people – both representatives of other nations and their countrymen, learn to communicate with people” [5].

It is important to outline that not only must translators know a foreign language, understand the worldview and culture of its native speakers, but distinguish different aspects in many ways. Political relations between states, events of great historical significance, scientific and technical terms from various fields, etc. is a must-have information list of a professional translator. Not one of our computers can compete with humans in translating both artistic and technical texts.

Boundaries of time, space, and translation links that cover almost all fields of human activity disappeared in the 21^st century due to immense spread of information. “An increasingly important place – both in terms of volume and social significance – began to be occupied by translations of texts of a special nature – informational, economic, and technical” [4].

Many experts say that in the nearest future a trained artificial intelligence will be able to replace a human translator. However, the developers are wary of these features. Most people talk about this possibility as a rather distant fact. Digital technologies do not stand still; they are rapidly developing appearing in various spheres of life. It is worth noting the wonderful opportunities that open up to users on the World Wide Web. The Internet helps to bring people together. It is convenient for communication, and is often used for business development. To expand the circle of interaction with people from other countries, you need to know the language.

However, computer or pocket translators can never replace humans. Artificial intelligence can act as an assistant to the translator, but is not able to entirely replace it, especially in the translation of fiction.

Modern translation theory distinguishes two main classifications of types of translation activity according to V.N. Komissarov: genre-stylistic classification (according to the nature of the translated texts) and psycholinguistic classification (according to the nature of the translator’s actions in the translation process) [1].

It is necessary to take a closer look at each of these types.

To begin with, genre-stylistic classification implies: literary translation and      informative (special) translation.

Literary translation is the translation of works of fiction. The main goal of this type of translation is to create a work in the target language that can have an artistic and aesthetic impact on the reader of the translation.

Informative (special) translation is the translation of texts on a specialized subject, the main function of which is the communication of any information, data. Also, separate subtypes of informative translation are distinguished depending on functional style of the text for translation. They are: scientific and technical translation, social and political translation, legal translation, website translation, etc.

The second, psycholinguistic classification, takes into account the nature of the translator’s actions in the translation process, namely the way the original text is perceived and the way the translation text is created subdividing the translation activity into oral translation and written translation.

Oral translation is a type of translation in which the original text and its translation appear in an unfixed form. The translator has the opportunity to perceive the original speech work or its segment only once and translate without the possibility of its subsequent analysis, rethinking and correction.

Written translation is a type of translation in which both the original text and the translated text appear as fixed texts. In the process of carrying out his activities the translator has unlimited opportunities to refer to both the original text and the translated text [1].

Considering the fractional division of the types of translation, according to many scientific linguists, the following types can be distinguished: interpreting (translation of a written original text performed orally); written-written translation (translation of a written text-original performed in writing); oral-written translation (translation of an oral speech work performed in writing); written and oral translation (translation of the original written text performed orally).

Taking into account the criterion of translation time, we can also distinguish such types of interpretation as consecutive translation and simultaneous translation.

Consecutive translation is a verbal translation of a message from one language into another after listening to it. It is pointed out that consecutive interpretation has certain advantages such as permitting immediate verification and, where necessary, correction of interpretations.

Simultaneous translation is a verbal translation performed by an interpreter simultaneously with the pronunciation of the original speech by the speaker. This type of translation consists of a synchronous perception of what is heard and the generation of its translation.

According to the translation direction, there are unilateral translation and bilingual translation.

Examples of unilateral translation are interpretation from one language to some other language. An example of bilingual translation is oral consecutive translation of a conversation from one language to another and vice versa.

Human participation in the translation process determines the division of types of translation into machine translation and traditional translation, i.e. human translation [1].

Machine translation is the act when one natural language is translated into another one using special software for this. In this case, the program can be installed directly on a computer (or mobile device) or be available only when connected to the Internet.

The problem of machine translation is quite complex and not fully understood. Its study seems to be relevant, first of all, from the position of optimizing the translation process [2]. The development of machine translation was facilitated by the expansion of international relations. People began to travel to other countries more often; business going abroad has ceased to be something exceptional, even by the standards of small companies. And if so, more and more difficulties in communication arise. As a result, machine translation is increasingly being used in business today. Even if the result of translations made by a computer is far from ideal, it is still better than nothing at all.

With the help of systems of machine translation it becomes possible to understand the contents of large volumes of texts very quickly. This can be very useful, for example, when it is necessary to classify a large amount of information in a foreign language or for linguistic analysis.

Despite the creation of various approaches and the solution of issues with computing power, the quality of machine translation is still far from ideal.

Modern systems of machine translation have already learned to translate technical texts that contain many scientific terms. The scientific style must be taken into consideration here. It is characterized by the logical structured sentences, semantic accuracy, informative richness, objectivity in the presentation of materials and hidden emotionality. Terminological vocabulary and complex grammatical structures help to implement all the features of the scientific style in practice.

Besides, quality of translation is strongly influenced by the language link between nations. For example, when translating from Polish to Ukrainian, the result will be much more worthy than from Norwegian to Korean. In the second case, the resulting text may turn out to be just unreadable nonsense.

For this reason, machine translation cannot yet do without human interpreter who either adapts the text eliminating all possible ambiguities (pre-editing), or edits a finished translation correcting mistakes (post-editing). There is also the concept of inter-editing when an interpreter intervenes in the operation of the system correcting mistakes at a go.

Translator is a unique profession for a number of reasons. First of all, it appeared thousands of years ago and, according to experts, will exist for a long time to come. Secondly, it has always been in demand due to the need to achieve mutual understanding between people from different countries. Finally, despite an evident accuracy and versatility of the profession, it has a lot of creative moments and features. Much depends on the goals, level of training, personal qualities of a translator and interpreter.