Establishing and development of the theory of translation as a science in the XX century

Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, author of Words and Rules, believes that with increased understanding of the structure of language to create more subtle linguistic maps, boosts in chip speed to accelerate the gathering of statistical data from texts, and refinements in the building of world models, machine translation will improve in small but significant increments in the next few years. “The better it works,” Pinker says, “the less it will be called machine translation. It will just be called software”. It's clear that to do their job as translators, computers will have to rely on what is most human in us: the capacity to negotiate meaning. Even when hair-tearing levels of innacuracy are introduced into chat room dialogue, Jennifer DeCamp, of Mitre Corporation, a federally funded IT think tank, points out that rapid back-and-forth exchanges can offer plenty of opportunities for what she calls “conversational repair”. Willingness to tolerate uncertainty and emrathetic leaps of understanding are what keep conversations on course in any medium. Research in machine translation has developed traditional patterns which wil clearly have to be broken if any real progress is to be made. The traditional view that the problem is principally a linguistic one is clearly not tenable but the alternative that require a translation system to have a substantial part of the general knowledge of restricted domains can facilitate the translaton of the texts in those domains. The most obvious gains will come from giving up, at least for the time being, the idea of machine translation as a fully automatic batch process in favor of one in which the task is apportioned between people and machines. The proposal made in according to which the translation machine would consult with a human speaker of the source language with detailed knowledge of the subject matter, has attracted more attention in recent times. A major objection to this approach, namely that the cost of operating such a system would come close to that of doing the whole job in the traditional way, will probably not hold up in the special, but widespread situation in which a single document has to be translated into a large number of languages.

Conclusion

It is impossible to imagine our modern society without translation and interpreting. People all over the world communicate with each other in different spheres: art, medicine, science, technology, politics, and music. Of course, a lot of people know foreign languages, but they also need the interpreters and translators service as well. Only in tandem they can achieve good success. If a person has chosen the profession of interpreter, all his life turns into study, with rare, casual breaks. First of all, any language develops, any society does it, any relations do it too. Of course any interpreter or translator must know the theory of translation which differs him from any person who knows foreign language. The theory of translation is his main tool which gives him knowledge and strength. In the first chapter of the work the attention was paid to the history of interpreting and establishing of the translation theory. The difference between translation and interpreting was shown. Models of interpreting, such as simultaneous interpreting, consecutive interpreting, whispered interpreting, liaison interpreting were described. The attention was also paid to the types of interpreting. The second chapter of the work was devoted to the development of the theory of translation in the twentieth century. As the past century was famous for its communication boom, the theory of translation was also influenced. The communication among people made the theory develop in order to be more useful and helpful. In this vary chapter some modern western schools of translation were described. The strong and weak points of the basic were also shown there. In the second chapter attention was also paid to the main popular modern types of interpreting and translation. Simultaneous translation is of great importance nowadays. Comparing with other types of interpreting and translation it is the most complicated type of interpreting, and it is more perfect form of consecutive translation. To perform such kind of interpreting, a person must be good prepared and well-trained. Simultaneous translation is both art and talent. And as any art it requires a talent, which is impossible to learn. However any talent requires development and constant perfection. Machine translation is also very popular and useful nowadays. There are a lot of special computer programs which make the process of translation easier. But machine translation without final correction is always clumsy and awful, it needs the corrections of the translator. And if you know foreign language very well, such kind of translation will help you in your work, making it faster and easier. This work may be interesting for students of foreign language faculties, teachers and young translators as well. The information given there will be useful and helpful for them. It will be also interesting for those who are going to be interpreters or translators.

Bibliography

1. Barron, John, “The final escape of Lieutenant Belenko”, New York, 1980, pp. 23-28.

2. Cohen, J.M., “Translation”, Encyclopedia Americana, 1986, pp.12-15.

3. Crystal, Scott. “Back Translation: Same questions - different continent”, pp.5-15.

4. Darwish, Ali, “Towards a Theory of Constraints in Translation”. 1999.

5. Delisle, Jean, “Translators through History”, 1995, p 87.

6. Gaiba, F, “Origins of simultaneous interpretation”, 1998, p 56.

7. Iser, W, “The range of Interpretation”, 2000, p 63.

8. Kasparek, Christopher, “The Translator's Endless Toil,” The Polish Review, 1983, pp. 83-87.

9. Kelly, L.G., `The True Interpreter: a History of Translation Theory and Practice in the West”, 1979, pp. 25-36.

10. Muegge, Uwe. “Translation Contract: A Standards-Based Model Solution”, 2005, pp. 30-45.

11. Piron, C, “The Language Challenge”, 1994, pp. 45-56.

12. Pusteblume, journal of translation at Boston University.

13. Rose, Marilyn Gaddins, “Translation: agent of communication”, 1980, pp. 87-98.

14. Ross, Flora “Early Theories of Translation”, 1920, pp.56-67.

15. Simms, Norman, editor (1983). Nimrod's Sin: Treason and Translation in a Multilingual World, pp. 12-20.

16. Tatarkiewicz, Wladyslaw, A History of Six Ideas: an Essay in Aesthetics, translated from the Polish by Christopher Kasparek, 1980, pp. 75-86.

17. Translation News, news about translations.

18. Venuti, Lawrence. “The Translator's Invisibility”, 1994, pp. 45-52.

19. Wilss, W, 1999, “Translation and Interpreting in the 20^th Century”, pp. 89-110.

20. Гофман Е.А. К истории синхронного перевода. 1963, стр. 52-62.

21. Кочкина З.А. Некоторые особенности деятельности синхронного переводчика. 1963.

22. Миньяр-Белоручев Р.К. Методика обучения переводу на слух. 1959.

23. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/translation

24. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpreting