Педагогические
науки/2. Проблемы подготовки специалистов
Simkova I. O.
Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor
National Technical University of Ukraine «Kyiv Polytechnic Institute»
The psycholinguistic nature of
sight translation training
The sight translation is a special kind of mental activity that is
carried out in difficult conditions because translator receives source text,
which he had not seen or he has just seen it before starting translation.
Reading the text written in a source language (SL) he says it in target
language (TL) as if the text is written in it.
Observed the professional translators work during sight translation we suggest
that their activity is non-stop, almost simultaneous. So, we can conclude that the
psycholinguistic mechanisms take part in sight translation and provide the
synthetic process.
We believe that in order to create an effective technique and the system
of exercises for sight translation training the analysis of such psycholinguistic
mechanisms is required.
To investigate the psycholinguistic nature of sight translation we take
into account the psychology data. It lets us study the sight translation as a
process.
The sight translation process combines three types of verbal activity:
reading, perception (or accepting), and speaking. It gives us reason to
consider them as components of the same synthetic process, which is the sight
translation. The first difficulty in this type of translation is that the
source text is given in written form and it is a starting point then
interpreter starts working on so-called internal program to produce verbal
utterance, which in the end takes an oral form. Thus, the sight translation can
be considered more complex than monolingual types of verbal activities such as listening,
speaking, reading and writing.
The second difficulty of sight translation is determined by the fact
that the whole process should proceed without obvious time lags between
perception and speaking, as it takes place during simultaneous interpreting. Sight
translation, as well as simultaneous significantly differs from consecutive one.
It is necessary to analyze mechanisms described in modern psychology and
relevant to the sight translation in order to understand the functioning of the
sight translation mechanisms, which provides synthetical character of the activity
where interpreter pronounces the translation of the preceding sentence, visually
percepts the ST, and reads the next sentence.
The major methodological principles of psychology known as the unity of
consciousness and activity, it lets us consider the unity of external and
internal. Consciousness and mentality are the internal characteristic of
activity. The monitoring of the external behavior is characteristic of mentality.
Activity is understood as a system within which mentality operates [1].
Three mechanisms of activity during the sight translation are emphasized:
1) general psychological mechanisms: perception, memory, and
comprehension;
2) specific mechanisms for special activity: level of regulation,
attention (switching, distribution, concentration), focus on observation when speaking
deviation (from the norm) took place; anticipatory reflection of reality in the
form of probabilistic forecasting in SL and proactive synthesis in TL;
3) specific mechanisms of sight translation: transcoding, compression, and
decompression.
The combined effect of these mechanisms determines the nature of the
activity of translation into all levels of its implementation. It displays features of both actual and
specific conditions for its implementation, being thus an instrument of
planning and regulating the translation work in progress.
The result of sight translation mechanisms interfunctioning is the synchronization
of such activities as reading, perception, and speaking.
During the research of sight translation process the specific mechanisms
were emphasized: transcoding mechanism of external verbal codes into internal
codes; switching mechanism; compression mechanism; decompression mechanism [2].
Emphasizing these sight translation mechanisms can help us during the
development of the exercise system for sight translation training. We should
pay special attention to the simultaneous develop of skills and sub-skills of
reading and speaking.
In the translation process three main phases are distinguished:
v
source text perception;
v
translation decision making;
v
target text arrangement.
There are the skills and abilities that are essential for the successful
implementation of three phases of the translation process. The quality of the target
text depends on the quality of the source text perception, which in its turn
depends on the ability to analyze its semantic content. Therefore, at this
stage of translation the ability to analyze the semantic content of the text is
vital, although it is not the only skill that allows quick and correct
perception. Listening and reading are required this ability, so during the sight
translation training it will be improved.
Implementation of the second phase of translation is provided by the
special skill called switching. The speed and accuracy of right equivalents selection
depends on its formation. Here we are talking about ability to use different
translation transformations; it is provided that switching skill operates well.
These skills and abilities belong to translation, because they are specific to
the special type of translation and are formed from the very beginning.
The third phase requires verbal skills and abilities that were formed
before sight translation training, it includes speaking.
Having considered the sight translation special training issues, we
believe that we can add switch ability and ability to use translation
transformations to the basic skills and abilities of sight translation.
We also should remember that skills and abilities are formed on the
basis of certain linguistic material knowledge. The professional texts are full
of terms. Terms create the systems, or as they are called – semantic fields
that make up the special language and are responsible for a particular part of
knowledge in the area. The knowledge of semantic fields determined by a special
language is a necessary condition for the translation skills and abilities formation.
At the same time terminological system knowledge forms the semantic
fields and assumes the possession of knowledge in the field of science and
technology, i.e. an interpreter should have certain level of scientific and
technical training.
So making a final conclusion about the content of sight translation
training, we believe that it consists of translation skills and abilities
formed on the basis of knowledge of certain fields and semantic skills and
abilities of other types of verbal activity involved in the sight translation
process.
Литература:
1.
Зимняя И. А. Педагогическая психология : Учебник для
вузов. – Изд. второе, доп., испр. и перераб. / И. А. Зимняя. – М. : Логос,
2005. – 384 с.
2.
Миньяр-Белоручев Р.К. Теория и методы
перевода / Р.К. Миньяр-Белоручев.
– М. : "Московский лицей", 1996. – 208 с.