In search of what the translation unit is: The functioning of translation units as units of decision-making
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33910/2686-830X-2022-4-1-6-15Keywords:
translation, process-oriented translation studies, decision-making, decision-making steps in translation, decision-making unit, translation unitAbstract
In this article, translation is viewed as a decision-making process. The article provides a brief overview of the process-oriented translation studies and the part in translation studies, which discusses translation activities from the point of view of decision making. The article describes the existing methodology of process-oriented translation studies and also presents her own method for obtaining, processing and analysing data, which makes describing decision-making mechanisms of different translators possible.
The article is an attempt to define the unit of translation in terms of the decision-making process. Numerous translators scholars have tried to establish the translation unit and all of them came up with a different definition. The author suggests that the nature of the translation unit depends on the aspect the researcher takes as a basis. Considering translation as a decision-making process, author defines the translation unit as a decision-making unit that corresponds to a group of elements from the source text in relation to which the translator has made the common final decision.
The article presents the results of an experimental study aimed at describing the translation process as a decision-making activity in terms of stages of decision-making, types of decisions, and external and internal constraints. The results of the experiment made it possible to draw a connection between the translation unit and the stages of making a translation decision, to demonstrate the variability different translators have in choosing a translation unit, and also to come up with a theory that a number of translation errors can be explained by a poor choice of the translation unit.
References
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