AUSIT Webinar | 20190528 Meaning Based Translating & Interpreting Part 2

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 challenge us on the linguistic choices we have made.

This webinar is intended to build on, and discuss in greater detail, some of the issues covered in a previous webinar on Meaning-based Translating and Interpreting conducted on 07 May 18 (which is available on the AUSIT website for those who did not have an opportunity to participate at the time).

This webinar will focus on the transfer of meaning, and the various ways of achieving a suitable degree of equivalence, at the level of words and short phrases; it will include the following:

– by way of background, an overview of analysing word meanings, including: ‘levels’ of meaning (propositional, connotative, evoked, and expressive meaning), concepts such as literal, extended, figurative, and collocational meaning; and the various types of dialect and register;
– words as indicators of how we ‘segment’ experience;
– the reasons why ‘translation challenges’ arise at the word level; and
– acceptable strategies for dealing with these translation challenges.