AUSIT Webinar | 20241015 Meaning-based Translating & Interpreting (Pt 6) – Equivalence at the pragmatic level

Making correct and valid linguistic choices when translating and interpreting, especially in the ‘pressure-cooker’ environment of interpreting, requires practitioners to have a good understanding of the principles which underlie the transfer of meaning between languages. This understanding is also invaluable on the occasions – which are bound to occur sooner or later – when clients or other professionals challenge us on the linguistic choices we’ve made.

This training event is intended to complement some of the issues covered in five previous webinars on Meaning-based Translating and Interpreting, all of these are available for purchase from the AUSIT webstore with the first two sessions now free. This training event is designed to be a stand-alone session, but as background to it you may find it useful to view any of those previous sessions (especially the first).

This training event will focus on the transfer of meaning, and the various ways of achieving a suitable degree of equivalence, at the level of ‘unstated’ meaning – the ‘pragmatic’ level. The content will include the following:
– by way of background, a brief review of the concept of translating and interpreting being ‘meaning-based’, and the concept of ‘equivalence’ of meaning;
– the problems that can arise when the target language expresses a particular idea differently from the source language because of the target language’s preferences, rather than because of a lack of linguistic resources;
– the specific ‘translation challenges’ posed when the source and target languages differ in their view of what information must be made explicit or what can be left implicit;
– similarly, the specific translation challenges posed when the source language implies or hints at certain meanings without stating them overtly (‘implicatures’); and
– acceptable strategies for dealing with all these translation challenges.

Duration: 1:54