Economic Translation: Theoretical and Practical Issues PDF

SHS Web of Conferences 69, 00139 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20196900139 CILDIAH-2019 Economic Translation: Theoretical and Practical Issues Irina Zaykova1,* Irina Shilnikova2,* 1Irkutsk National Research Tech...

SHS Web of Conferences 69, 00139 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20196900139 CILDIAH-2019 Economic Translation: Theoretical and Practical Issues Irina Zaykova1,* Irina Shilnikova2,* 1Irkutsk National Research Technical University, Foreign Languages Department, 664074, Irkutsk, Russia 2Irkutsk State University, International Institute of Economics and Linguistics, 664058, Irkutsk, Russia Abstract. The paper deals with theoretical and practical analysis of economic translation. It is considered from two points of view: as a process and a product of rendering. As a process it is a multistage complex act of cross-cultural bilingual communication that aims to produce the closest natural equivalent to the target text. It is also characterized by a high degree of equivalence of the source text. As a product economic translation is an equivalent of the source text which is not identical due to cultural and language differences. The study reveals the interdisciplinary character of economic translation that makes it difficult to define its status. It has different nominations (economic translation, commercial translation, etc.). The analysis shows that the  term  “economic  translation”  is  wider.  It  is  due to the fact that it functions in various areas of activity (business, economy, trade and etc.). This factor affects the source texts that are different in genres and styles. The practical part of the article is devoted to the most common mistakes specified by the classification of Andreea-Rosalia Oteanu: the reading of the English text and English lexical meaning. The authors present some examples, analyze and describe them. 1 Introduction 2 Economic translation as a concept The process of globalization has impacted the world since last century removing barriers and allowed access Traditionally  the  term  “translation”  is  regarded  from  two   to any information all over the world [1, 2]. It has also points of view: as a process and a product of rendering. effected business activities throughout the world [1-3]. Webster’s  New  World dictionary gives the following In this regard, the study of economic translation is of definition of the term:  “act,  process,  or  instance  of   particular interest. Researchers in this area pay much translating: such as a rendering from one language into attention to lexical aspects. In particular, a number of another  and  the  product  of  such  a  rendering”. In publications are devoted to economic terms. They other  words,  it  can  be  defined  as  “the  process  of  turning   explore business terminology , English borrowings an original or "source" text into a text in another , euphemisms. In addition, they study metaphors language”  and  “a  translated  version  of  a  text”  . Let in business language [7, 8]. us proceed to study two definitions of the term. Another area of research is translating different Translation as a process is a complex speech- genres of economic texts (press releases, textbooks, language activity. Peter Newmark says, "A newspaper articles, business correspondence, etc.). satisfactory translation is always possible, but a good Studies focus on problems that translators can face: translator is never satisfied with it. It can usually be discursive aspects (framing, rhetorical figures, etc.) improved. There is no such thing as a perfect, ideal or [10,11], finding equivalents [3,12]. ‘correct’  translation. A translator is always trying to Analysis shows that the concept of "Economic extend his knowledge and improve his means of translation" is still under study. The authors try to map expression; he is always pursuing facts and words. He the field of economic translation, but in translation works at four levels. Translation is first a science, which theory the term has not been clearly defined yet. In entails the knowledge and verification of the facts and addition, not all its peculiarities are revealed from the language that describes them - here, what is wrong, theoretical and practical points of view. The article aims mistakes of truth, can be identified. Secondly, it is a to  define  the  term  “economic  translation”, identifying its skill, which calls for appropriate language and common features as well as showing its specificity in acceptable usage. Thirdly, an art distinguishes good from practice. undistinguished writing and is the creative, the intuitive, sometimes the inspired level of the translation. Lastly, a matter of taste, where argument ceases, preferences are expressed, and the variety of meritorious translations is the reflection of individual  differences”  [16: 6]. The * Corresponding author: [email protected] © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). SHS Web of Conferences 69, 00139 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20196900139 CILDIAH-2019 author shows a multistage complex process in which a language variant, stylistic register and degree of translator has to make significant efforts. understanding. Consequently, it can be stated that In addition, scholars point out that the main purpose an important distinctive feature of translation from of  translation  is  ‘to  serve  as  a  cross-cultural bilingual interpretation is a high degree of the target text communication vehicle  among  peoples’  . In this equivalence. context,  translators  “enable  communication  to  take  place   Another distinctive feature is based on the fact that between members of different culture communities. source texts are texts of certain complexity. They are They bridge the gap between situations where newspaper and scientific articles, different types of differences in verbal and nonverbal behaviour, documents and correspondence that are translated expectations, knowledge and perspectives are such that practically only in writing. This makes it possible to there is not enough common ground for the sender and reveal another specific feature of translation. It is receiver to communicate effectively  by  themselves”  [18: focused on complex texts of different functional styles 43]. Thus, translation is regarded as an act of and genres. Figure 1 serves to represent the peculiarities intercultural communication in which translator works as of translation as a process and a product of rendering. a mediator. Besides, it is necessary to emphasize that translation as a process aims to produce in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent to the message of the source Translation language. Consequently, it focuses on the equivalent, but it cannot be identical to the target language. Translation as a product of rendering is the target text created to represent the source text in another language. In addition, being an equivalent of the source text, as stated above, it is not identical due to differences in language and culture. Process Product Considering the peculiarities of translation, it should be noted that its specificity is mostly seen in comparison with interpretation. As analysis shows, the significant difference between translation and interpretation is the time factor. R. Minyar-Beloruchev points out that during the process of translation there is an unlimited time, which allows to use dictionaries and various reference books, while Not identical due two differences Multistage complex process of different functional styles and interpretation is carried out in extreme conditions of Equivalent of the source text Rendering written texts of Requires a high degree of in language and culture cross-cultural bilingual functioning of mental interpreter mechanisms. communication Translators first read and analyze a source language, equivalence developing a meaning hypothesis. Then they write a text genres in a target language, which they can check for fidelity and editorial acceptability, and change it if they find it necessary. Hence, the translator always has sufficient time to think about his strategy. In addition to the above translation unlike interpretation requires a high degree of equivalence. L. Latyshev states, that functional and stylistic adequacy of Fig.1 Translation as a process and a product of written translation is always been expected. What is rendering acceptable in interpretation is unacceptable in translation. He is echoed by I. Alekseeva saying that the Obviously, economic translation has all requirements of equivalence in translation are much characteristics inherent in translation in general. higher, and errors are not acceptable at all. Unlike Otherwise, it would not take place as an act of cross- translation, in oral form the denotative translation model cultural bilingual communication. As a result, economic is widely practiced. According to this model, the translation is a multistage complex process of cross- interpreter, not caring about the form in which cultural bilingual communication the purpose of which is information is expressed in the source language, conveys to produce the closest natural equivalent to the target the meaning of this information following the rules text. It is also a process of rendering written texts of existing in the target language. In most cases the different functional styles and genres with a high degree translator does not even think about the transfer when of equivalence under sufficient time circumstances. interpreting the individual style of the source. Besides the peculiarities inherent in translation, Following the high requirements of equivalence of the economic translation has its own specificity. It is an target text, the translator must not only adequately interdisciplinary area of research and professional transmit the source text, but also localize it, that is, adapt practice. In fact, economics covers various areas of the text to the target group according to the content, activity: business, economy, trade and commerce. 2 SHS Web of Conferences 69, 00139 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20196900139 CILDIAH-2019 Therefore, it is difficult to define the status of the term. It 1) The reading of the English text, where the is regarded as business translation, commercial majority of mistakes in translating is done because the translation, financial translation and economic translators have weak reading process which influences translation. Analysis shows, business translation is more the interpretation of original text into target language frequently used than others. This is due to the fact that. Errors found at this stage can be divided into the translator’s  activity  is  closely  connected  with  rendering   following categories: business papers such as contracts, agreements, financial a. Miscue – a term coined by Goodman reports and invoices, as well as different types of "referring to an incorrect guess made by a reader when correspondence (informative letters and advertising reading a text. For example,  the  word  ‘program’  is  read   letters). It should be taken into account that the term as ‘performance’;;  ‘ready’  as  ‘reading’,  ‘county’  as   “economic  translation”  is  much  wider.  It  implies  the   ‘country’  and  so  forth.  Usually  beginner  readers  make  a   process of rendering texts in official business style lot of miscue errors; however, when their reading (commercial documents and correspondence), improves, they tend to make fewer of this type of errors. newspaper style (newspaper articles) and scientific style b.  The  translator’s  wrong  assumption  of  the   (reports, articles and monographs). background knowledge. "A competent translator should Summarizing the above-mentioned, it can be have an inquisitive mind constantly searching for concluded that specificity of economic translation lays in encyclopedic knowledge". In other words, he can the field of its functioning and in genre stylistic diversity acquire appropriate background knowledge to interpret of the source text (See figure 2). the source. 2) English lexical meaning. "In English lexical meaning, errors can be divided into prepositional meaning which is wrongly interpreted and expressive meanings which are translated as prepositional meaning". Economic Specific field translation of functioning: various areas 4 Analyzing the mistakes in practice of activity So far, two major sources of errors presented by the authoritative people induced us to analyze the mistakes which are often made by the students studying interpretation  in  the  professional  sphere  “Economics”   and  “Trading”. While analyzing their works, we managed to classify the errors according to the most frequently occurring and Genre stylistic thus might be viewed as specific and characterizing the diversity difficulties in rendering from English into Russian. The first widely made mistake is the absence of pragmatic analysis before starting rendering the text. “The  factors  of  communicative  situation  in  which  the   source text is used are of decisive importance for text Fig. 2 Economic translation specificity analysis because they determine its communicative function. This leads to extratextual dimensions that are: The following discussion will focus on the specificity intention, receiver, medium, place, time, occasion and of economic translation concerning practical issues. function”  . The young interpreters prefer to start translating without clarifying the details of article being rendered. It leads to such mistakes as the wrong 3 Definition and classification of errors translation of the time of the event (instead of present in translating economic texts tense they use past and vice versa), the wrong interpretation of the source of the information, for Translation errors are different from errors that would instance:  the  newspapers  “the  Daily  Telegraph”,  “the   occur in spontaneous second language production, Independent  on  Sunday”,  “The  Times”  are  often  called   because "errors in translation mostly result from the non- by magazines or websites. Another rude mistake to be equivalence between the source and the target dealt with here is the misunderstanding of the motive, the languages". However, good translators with genre, and the subject matter. The motive in many encyclopedic knowledge and linguistic knowledge of economic articles is that these news reports have been both the source and target languages know how to deal written because something of importance has happened. with them; therefore, "errors can indicate the quality of The genre, which is related to the structural aspect of the translations but in the same time they can reveal what is text, is an informative newspaper. The subject matter is going on in the translator's thinking process". indicated in the title. For example: the title of the article According to Andreea-Rosalia Oteanu the sources of “Trading  Economics  Across  the  Atlantic:  Jan  Tinbergen   errors can be classified into: and  Milton  Friedman”   was misinterpreted as 3 SHS Web of Conferences 69, 00139 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20196900139 CILDIAH-2019 undertaking economic activity across (through) the mistakes mostly lies in the personal qualities and Atlantic Ocean, though the article was devoted to the intelligence of the interpreter, and the fact that there is cooperation between the countries situated around the no possibility of interpretation, requiring general Atlantic Ocean. knowledge of the economic field. As for the mistakes in lexical meaning, the widely spread mistakes are connected with the economic terms. The most common are the translation of the type of legal 5 Conclusion entities. These errors are often made due to the The paper has attempted to analyze economic translation difference of the legal systems between Russia and as a concept and to reveal its peculiarities in practice. foreign countries. For example, the  abbreviation  ‘SA”   Theoretical analysis shows that on the one hand it is a might be used only by corporations (enterprises, issuing multistage complex process of cross-cultural bilingual the shares for investors) only in such countries as France, communication. On the other hand, it is a product of the Belgium, Switzerland and some other countries of source text rendering into another language wherein the Europe, but offshore zone countries use this abbreviation target text cannot be identical. However, the aim of this to show their limited liability, and for these countries the translation is to produce the closest natural equivalent to English equivalent will be LLC. One more example the target text. In addition, economic translation is “publicity  traded  company’  (“What  are  Publicly  Traded   characterized by interdisciplinary character that causes Companies?”   means the company which shares the nominative component and the diversity of styles and circulate freely in the stock exchange market, but not the genres of the source texts. It is also different in its freely transferable company. multifunctionality due to various areas which economics Other problems in lexical interpretation are dealt with cover. All these factors directly affect the texts that the idioms, set expressions and metaphors. There are translators have to face in their practice. several sentences from the above-mentioned article The majority of mistakes which arise during the “Trading Economics across the Atlantic: Jan Tinbergen students’  translation  work  on  economic  texts  are   and  Milton  Friedman”   to exemplify it: generally connected with the lack of desire to clarify the ‘He  was  set  on  resolving  the  problems  of  society,  and   details of the article being rendered, a difficulty in for that ideal economics was to be a better vehicle than understanding the concepts and vocabulary, mostly due physics.’   – the  word  ‘vehicle’  was  translated  directly as to the long and complex sentences. Modern gadgets and ‘a  means  of  transport’  instead  of  ‘way’  or  ‘method’,   availability of the Internet access simultaneously ‘device’. simplify the translation process, and at the same time ‘It earned him, together with his more theoretically decrease the level of background knowledge which is a oriented colleague and friend Ragnar Frisch the first sufficient part of a success. The only way out of this Nobel  Prize  in  economics  in  1969.’ – the  verb  ‘to  earn’   problem might be the decrease of background has  the  meaning  ‘to  have  /  bring  respect  to  somebody’   knowledge. The important role here belongs to the but  not  ‘to  make  money  /profit’. teacher who might develop and constantly sustain the One more example from another source: students’  interest. ‘Regional  benchmarking  is  also  a  useful  tool  to   inform  strategic  intelligence  initiatives.’   – ‘intelligence’  might  not  be  interpreted  as  a  “the  ability to References acquire  and  apply  knowledge  and  skills’  but  as  ‘a   process  of  reconnoitering’.    The  word  ‘benchmarking’   1. M. Cronin, Translation and globalization vice versa is translated with the help of tracing and there (Routledge, London, 2003) is no necessity to find out the proper Russian variant. 2. Ł.   Biel,   V.   Sosoni,   Perspectives   Studies   in   What raise difficulties are phrasal verbs and idioms Translation Theory and Practice 25, 351-361 that have to be translated according to the context. In the (2017) article  “Will Europe's unemployed pay the price of a 3. M.V. Melnichuk, V.M. Osipova, IEJME– single  currency?” by Tony Barber there is an idiom Mathematics 11 (7), 2503-2514 (2016) ‘get  off  the  ground’  which  is  translated  as  a  ‘introduce   moneda  euro’(“If  they  fail  to  do  so,  it  is  quite   4. P. Kelandrias, The translation of economic texts conceivable  that  the  Euro  will  not  get  off  the  ground”). (Diavlos, Athens, 2007) The  verbs  ‘to  squeeze’  and  ‘to  prune’  may  constitute  a   5. R. Stolze, Across Languages and Cultures 4 (2), problem  for  the  translator  because  here  ‘squeeze’  means 187-203 (2003) ‘a  restrange’  and  ‘prune’  – ‘reduce’(‘But  the EU 6. C. Resche, Journal des Traducteurs 44 (4), 617- member- state (except, it seems, Britain again) is happy 632 (1999) at the prospect of being left out in 1999, and so most 7. S. Kermas, Studies in specialized discourse, 109- governments have embarked on the unpopular course of 130 (2006) squeezing public spending and pruning their welfare systems’). 8. P.A. Fuertes Olivera, S. Nielsen, Terminology. The To sum up, the problems that a translator may face Dynamics of Terms in Specialized Communication: dealing with economic texts are: a difficulty in an Interdisciplinary Perspective 17(1), 157-180 understanding the concepts and vocabulary due to the (2011) long and complex sentences. The course of these 4 SHS Web of Conferences 69, 00139 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20196900139 CILDIAH-2019 9. H. Buzelin, M. Dufault, C. Foglia, The Translator 25. I.S. Alekseeva, Introduction into Theory of 21(1), 24-49 (2015) Translation (Academiya, Moscow, 2004) 10. Th. Kaniklidou, J. House, Minor Translating Major 26. V.N. Komissarov, A Word on Translation 5, 60-80 (2013) (Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, Moscow, 1973) 11. K. Smith, Language and Literature 15 (2), 159-182 27. T.V. Voevodina, Tetradi Perevodchika 20, 66-77 (2006) (1983) 12. P.V. Anderson, Technical Communication 28. J. Zeumer, H. Salevsky, Die Verantwortung des (Cengage Learning, Wadsworth, 2010) Übersetzers  in  Europa  neuer (Lang, Frankfurt am 13. Webster’s  New  World  dictionary,  URL:   Main, 1996) www.merriam-webster.com 29. I.V. Zaykova, Modeling the economic macro- 14. R. Nordquist, Translation: Definition and discourse in teaching translation to university Examples, URL: www.thoughtco.com students (Irkutsk National Research Technical University, Irkutsk, 2017) 15. L.L. Nelyubin, Explanatory translation dictionary (Flinta: Nauka, Moscow, 2003) 30. M. Baker, In other words: A Coursebook on Translation (London and New York, Routledge, 16. P. Newmark, A Textbook of Translation (Prentice 1992) Hall, London, 1988) 31. C. Seguinot, Interpreting Errors in Translation, 17. M.A. Sim, A.M. Pop, Managing Problems when translating economic texts, URL: URL: https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/meta/1990- http://anale.steconomiceuoradea.ro/volume/2012/n v35-n1-meta327/004078ar/ 2/021.pdf 32. R. Olteanu, Errors and Difficulties in Translating 18. C. Nord, Iha do Desterro 33, 41-55 (1997) Economic Texts (Editura  Sfântul  Ierarh  Nicolae,   2012) 19. E.A. Nida, Readings in General Translation Theory 2, 153-162 (1988) 33. K.S. Goodman, Read. Res. Quat 5, 1, 9-30 (1969) 20. V.N. Komissarov, Modern Translation Science 34. B. Hatim & I. Mason, Discourse and the Translator (ETS, Moscow, 2004) (London and New York, 1990) 21. L.K. Latyshev, Translation: Problems of Theory, 35. J. Tinbergen, M. Friedman Trading Economics Practice and Methods of Teaching Across the Atlantic, URL: (Prosveshceniye, Moscow, 1988) https://www.academia.edu/36197732/Trading_Eco nomics_Across_the_Atlantic_Jan_Tinbergen_and_ 22. R.K. Minyar-Beloruchev, Theory and Methods of Milton_Friedman Translation (Moskovskiy Litsey, Moscow 1996) 36. Accounting Course, URL: 23. D. Gile, Translation Research and Interpreting www.myaccountingcourse.comSm Research: Traditions, Gaps and Synergies, 10-34 (2004) 37. Smart Specialization Platform, URL: http://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu 24. L.K. Latyshev, Technology of Translation (Tezaurus, Moscow, 2000) 38. T. Barber, Indep. URL: https://www.independent.co.uk 5