35. Sentence meaning: Words and sentences Main goal of semantics is 1. To show how words and sentences are related to one another in terms of such notions as synonyms, entailment and contradiction. 2. To explain how the sentences of language are understood and interpreted and related to states, properties and objects of the universe.
Translators and linguists are in substantial agreement that both orientation to the description and explanation of meaning are necessary to understand the relationships of form to form within the code and that of formal structures of the code to the communicative context of rules. Of the two, the translator particularly needs the second. All psychological problems are the key to each meaning. - the notion of equivalence is one of the key concepts in translation theory means to relate one sentence to another and to recognize that word-meaning can only be arrived at through the study of the meaning of the word in the linguistic co-text of the sentence and the sentence meaning depends of the setting of the sentence in its communicative context. - The meaning of the sentence is the semantic set of words. Skilled reading depends on seeing the relationships between the text sentences and the whole of the meaning of the text can not be spelled out in actual written sentences, they entail other, some suggest implications, other depend of presupposition of the writer. - Utterance, sentence and proposition Sentence-meaning like the word-meaning can be approached initially through the notions of inclusions and exclusions as the discovery of the SL equivalence of hyponomy, synonymy and antonyme.
The levels of abstractions and idealization are applied to any strength of language we may wish to translate. There is type-token relationship (lots of tokens and certificates). Each sentence can be viewed as an ideal type which can be realized by range of actual utterances, tokens and so on: - do we translate with a proposition, utterance or sentence? - What is the implication of choosing one rather than other?
Utterance can be typified as being concrete and context-sensitive. It is the utterance and not a sentence that is reported on paper or an audiotape and it is used to a specified time, place and participants. It is judged in terms of appropriateness rather than grammatically. The slogan of it is, “Everything is acceptable”. The sentence in contrast is abstract and context-free. Unlike utterances, sentences exist only in our minds. When the sentence is said or written down we still tend to refer to it as a sentence. It is necessary to recognize the difference between the substantial written down sentence or an abstract sentence, which is an idealization i.e. the written sentence is better thought of it as an utterance or a text. Think what happens when we remember what someone said or done? We tend to remember it as an idealized work, “edited” in a way. In contrast to utterance the sentence is not set in time, place, nor tied to any particular participants. Proposition is more abstract than sentence, it is the unit of meaning which constitutes the subject matter of the sentence. It has been defined as “that” part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence which describes some state of affairs and hence, while mentioning a declarative sentence the speaker is asserting proposition. Proposition is not only context-free is also language-free in a sense that it can no be tied to any specific language. An utterance can be said and written in any language and recognized as a realization of a sentence of that particular language. Utterance is a token of a sentence-type which is itself a token of a proposition type. Proposition includes sentence and utterance, i.e. there's relation of hyponymy. - Situation, context and universe of discourse (linguistic and social knowledge) Meaning depends not only on the dictionary meaning but from the context also. It is necessary to understand that meaning not only connected with languages in the world. It would reassert that there is adding comprehension itself consists of reconstructing the context from the words from the text. What is context itself? The important thing is to set aside all the words of the original text to see picture clearly. Having seen the picture the translator must write down what he sees in the simplest English. It is the idea or the picture that has to be communicative but not equivalent of actual words. What is meant by context? Three levels of abstraction can be suggested here, that is the immediate situation of utterance, context of utterance and the universe of discourse. The relationships between the situation, context and universe are related in exactly the same way as the relation utterance-sentence-proposition, i.e. situation is contained in the context as the context is contained in the universe. During and act of communication individuals interact, knowledge is conveyed (i.e. sense) through the selections made from resources. The meaning potential of the code and certain entities that referred to by the linguistic forms used. Languages differ in the way the organize the transfer of information. Some meanings are totally dependant on immediate situation of utterance (the totality of the circumstances in which the utterance was issued). 1. Immediate situation of utterance (when we are conveying knowledge and using the special code that is a group of circumstances) 2. Context of utterance.
Context of utterance comes next in order of increasing abstraction and generality to understand the context of utterance we should distinguish the context of utterance. There are two ways of knowledge obtained: A) linguistic knowledge B) social knowledge
A) This allows the writer to build the information into the structure of the text by marking new information and distinguishing it that is old or given and the reader is to recognize the structures and derive information from the text. B) Social knowledge includes in particular knowledge which allows the communicator to recognize that the situation of utterance is the token realization (знаковая реализация) of a situation of type which acts as a guide to participation. Both of these kinds of knowledge are enormously significant to the translation.
Universe of discourse Languages vary greatly in the way they mark information (different ways of expressing). Without the social knowledge would be hard to assign communicative value of the text. This kind of the social knowledge allows the reader to classify the genre of the text, it hinges not only about the text knowledge itself, but for the discourse knowledge. Universe of Discourse is the third most abstract and most general of all settings. It consists of whatever can be said about the particular subject and includes the definition of not what the participant knows but what the participant doesn't know. All the participants could be constructed in a relation to that subject. What can be referred to in one topic area will be different from that which is proper in another though they may be the decreased (association). Universe of discourse means the culture and community of a reader ( cinema in India and in Western countries, for example). The notion is of particular significance for the translator since universes of discourse cannot but be culture specific and to the extent different cultures co-occur with different languages will be reflected in different lexicons. A crucial requirement for the success of communication will be operating within the same universe of discourse and therefore the question is one which must be constantly in the mind of the translator is required to mediate between the culture and language.
36. Definitions of text and discourse We know that language whether as knowledge doesn't consist of individable isolated units. This raises two issues, which exercised translators, first of which is the problem of the unit of translation. Language is not isolated from users, it doesn't consist of an individual isolated sentences. Thus, we formulate those two issues: 1. What is the size of unit of translation? 2. The focus of commitment of a translator? First one is a preservation of a contents or the form of the original sentence (text). Current thinking among translator's theories stresses inherited possibility of preserving the original content, insists that the translated text is a new creation which derives from close and careful reading. The text, like the sentence, is a structured sequence of linguistic expressions forming a unitary whole. In contrast to discourse, which is far broader structured event, manifest in linguistic behaviour not entirely adequate because: 1. Some linguists use text and discourse interchangeably while others reserve the first to written document, and the other - to speech. 2. The formal product of selection of options from theme, system of the grammar, a unit that carries the semantic sense of a proposition through sentences that are linked together by means of cohesion. Discourse is a communicative event, which draws of the meaning potential of the language (and other system of communication) to carry communicative value of speech acts through utterances, which are linked by means of coherence 37. Standards of textuality We shall define several characteristics of the text, each of the 7 is essential and failure to comply with anyone of them will cause the overall failure. The text, which lacks any of these features, is not a text, but merely an aggregate of words, sounds and letters. The standards, which have been proposed in order to answer key questions we'll need to ask in any text: 1. How do the clauses hold together (cohesion)? 2. How do the propositions hold together (coherence)? 3. Why did the speaker/writer produced this text (intentionality)? 4. How does the reader take it (acceptability)? 5. What does it tell us (informativity)? 6. What is the text for (relevance)? 7. What other texts does this one resemble (intertextuality)?
Text is a widely common occurrence that meets 7 standards of textuality if any of these standartds is considered not to have been satisfied, the text will not be communicative. Hence, non-communicative texts are treated as non-texts. These standards are the constitutive principles, which define textual communication and are relational in character concerned of how occurrences are connected to others via grammatical dependences on the surface (cohesion), via conceptual dependences (coherence) in a textual world via the attitude of the participant toward the text (intentionality and acceptability of the text) via the incorporation of the new and unexpected (informativity) via the setting (situationality) and via the mutual relevance of the separated texts. 38. Cohesion and coherence Cohesion and coherence distinct from each other but share crucial characteristics. They both have the function of binding the text together by creating sequences of meaning but they differ greatly in the manner in which they are doing this and the nature of the meaning involved. Cohesion consists of mutual connections of components of the surface text within a sequence of clauses and sentences. Coherence is in contrast consists of the configurating and sequencing of concept and relations of the textual worlds, which underlined and are realized by surface text.
While cohesion must be seen as a typically text-oriented phenomena and coherence lees so, it is clear, that notions at the real world imply inhabitants of that world (users of the text who are engaged in discourse) and standards of textuality which refer to them rather than to a text itself. There are two characteristics: 39. Intentionality and acceptability If in a text, coherence and cohesion, it must be intended and accepted as such in order to be utilized in communicative interaction, i.e. the producer of the text must intend it to contribute towards some goal (giving or demanding something), the receiver of it must accept that it is indeed fulfilling of such purpose.. The two other converse each other. So, intention is being sender-oriented and acceptability is being receiver-oriented. 40. Informativity, relevance and intertextuality Situation overall plays an important role - informativity - relevance (situationality) - intratextuality
Those 3 standards of textuality are concerned with informational structure, the relevance of the text to its situation of occurrence and the relationships of the text to other texts. Texts contain information and a measure of it is informativity of the text. However, the calculation of the measure of information is not a simple one but depends on a notion of a choice and probability, this is made from the set of options. In every text something is more or less probable, and the less probable and predictable the choice is the more interesting it is. Some choice are whole predictable - uninformative are uninteresting. However too much information renders the text unreadable, while the converse too little information renders it readable but not worse reading. Texts not only contain information, they possess a degree of relevance (or situationality) in so far as they exist for a particular communicative purpose and link communicative acts, discourse in a situation in which they occur. Indeed, it is a crucially important for an assessment (оценка) of the appropriateness of the text where it's occurred and what its function was in that situation. 41. Text typologies To understand reader/writer of a text we should understand the function, knowledge (s-s-p) and skills required during fulfilling the process of building the text. We have typified TP as being concerned to 3 points: 1. What is the text about? 2. What the writer's purpose was? 3. What a plausible context in using it? In order to answer those questions and understand (make sense of) the text, the reader has to draw on appropriate linguistic and social knowledge, that is syntactic, semantic, pragmatic. We have typified TP as being concerned to 3 problems: 1. Discovery of the contents 2. Purpose 3. Context
Individual text resembles other texts and this resemblance, which is drawn upon by the text processor in “making sense” of the text. This knowledge is clearly of crucial importance to the language user and an attempt to explain how texts are created and used must include an answer to a question, “How it is given that some texts are unique and some are treated as the same?” Text has traditionally been organized into formal typology on the basis of the topic (making use of quantitative measures), frequency (of occurrence) of particularly lexical items of syntactical structures. There are a particular number of difficulties in working with typology. Those are definitions: what is meant by poetry? On literature or how are scientific, technical, mathematical texts are distinguished. Poetry can be easily about anything. When the author wants to express attitude, there is no subject of matter. 42. Formal and Functional typologies Another, functional typologies, have been suggested, a few based on a notion of degrees of translatability, but the majority being organized on the 3-way distinction, on whether the major focus of the text is on: 1. the producer (emotive) 2. the subject matter (referential) 3. receiver (connotative, pragmatic)
According to this terminology, thus texts can be distinct, expressive, informative and location. So, text can be divided into three types: 1. Literary 2. Institutional 3. Scientific.
But it is unclear, under which function institutional is intended to come and overlap scientific - including all fields of science, technology, but tending to merge with institutional in the area of social texts 43. Text processing 44. We have been clearly suggested that the linguistic knowledge which is underlying the user's ability to process texts can be divided (for analytical purpose) into form s-s-p; all of which playing a part in the production and comprehension of texts.
Knowledge There exist 2 types of knowledge. 2. Procedural knowledge (how to do all things) - Factual (knowing that something is the case) - Syntactic We have discussed as an instance procedural knowledge and skills in applying that knowledge, i.e. particular aspects that are of communication competence. Communicator means translator. The first question is what should we know to translate the text? There is three-level linguistic knowledge : s-s-p.
Syntactic knowledge is limited by means of creating clauses, ordered sequence, consisting of units and structures of the text. What is involved is knowledge of a system of chain and a choice, which organize the semantic meaning provided of a proposition (how words are combined). What elements exist and how can they be legitimately combined (properly)> - Semantic Not only syntax, but structural and semantic information and it is a combination, which gives the language user access to the literal meaning of the clause.
- Pragmatic Now we are at the domain of pragmatic that involves plans and goals includes textual characteristics such as textuality, intentionality, acceptability and situationaliyt, the attitude of the producer/receiver of the text and the relevance of the context of use of meters, which takes us well beyond the code of communication and the area of the use of the code of communication. We should necessarily have all these groups. Summary: we have been suggesting that a linguistic knowledge which underlines the user's ability to process texts can be divided for analytical purposes on semantic, syntactic and pragmatic knowledge all of which play a part in the production and comprehension of all texts.
44. Problem-solving and text processing A convenient place to start is to recognize two ways of reception/reproduction and reading/writing and then the processes involved mirror images of each other. If we can explain reading/writing in terms of the same model : Writer-Text-Reader The model is cascaded because it is possible to move from one stage into another because the earliest stage has completed its work. The process of translation is of that where we work out meanings of words and structure of the sentence at some time. We are predicting because of context plus the comprise meaning of sentences already processed and we say what is the next sentence is likely to be. As a revision of earlier decisions, we see the text as a linear string of symbols. Some scientists ask, what strings of symbols should we use? Writer
Context I Production process
Context II Interpretation process
Reader/Hearer
Text production on the text reception constitutes the major part of the process of human communication and as such inevitably subject to constraints that insure that we are sealing with one text (writer's or reader's text). In principle, processing could go on forever, there is no definite reading of the text, there is no perfect rendering of the form, nor, therefore a perfect translation. That's why we need a threshold of termination the point at which the writer feels that the text is adequate to achieve the goal set for it, or where the reader has got enough or out of the text, there is a little point in continuing, this is the moment when text reached adequacy.
Arrows bottom up - for reception Arrows bottom down - for production
The model in its present form suggests that there are 5 stages involved in text processing. Those are gone through is respective to whether the text is being received (read or analyzed), produced (synthesized or written). The difference being the direction of processing. We regard those 2 processing as operating in both directions from data - to concept, and from concept - to data. We move from stage to stage on the basis of partial completion of earlier stages. 45. Synthesis: writing First question we approach is what to write? The second question is how to write? Pre-writing stage is the most important of all stages, during which revisions are made sometimes to completed work. Everything depends on the goal while pre-writing it is necessary to fulfill 3 regulative principles of text that have been suggested: - efficiency (the minimum expenditure of efforts should be required) - effectiveness (the success in creating the condition for obtaining a goal) - Appropriateness (a balance between efficiency and effectiveness) There are some stages between planning to actual writing: 1) Planning involves the writer in goal standing and the problem how to obtain a goal. Why and what for the text should be? 2) Ideation concerns decisions on the main ideas, which will further the plan and their mapping into the plan. Main ideas should be: The translation must be studied as a process rather than a product and a model of that process should be developed in linguistics & cognitive science about human-information processing. 3) Development takes the ideas, organizes them in coherent framework and interrelation between chapters and articles. 4) Expression is an expression of ideas, which puts them into non-language specific prepositional form. Actor-process-goal 5) Parsing is a grammatical composition, it maps the prepositional content into the syntax through selection of MOOD systems and arranges clauses in a suitable communicative manner through selection of THEME systems and finally realizes them as a written text. 46. Analysis: reading Reading, according to a model we are studying, consists of the same stages but in reverse direction, i.e. from surface text to plans and goals. Parsing, concept recoveries, simplification, idea recovery (getting a gist), plain recovery (realization how to take the message of the text). Sometimes the author may have to re-interpret the earlier process. Besides, all these psychological and linguistic reasons should be taken into consideration. The first stage is parsing, i.e. analysis of a linear string of symbols-letters, which make up clauses (may be usual string of symbols). While discussing parsing, attention should be drawn from the point of view of the writer - is it usual or not? The second stage is concept recovery. They ran a bill up They ran up a bill They ran it up They ran up it - interesting
The third stage is the gist - what is the text about? Problem-solving strategies available for reading analysis: 1. To work steadily through the clauses in the order in which they are presented, holding unresolved for further resolution (BREADTH-FIRST approach) 2. to read/write at a high speed (skimming) extracting, what appears to be the main points (DEPTH-FIRST approach) 3. 1+2
47. Knowledge (conceptual categories and entries, schemas) Conclusion: text typologies need 2 types of knowledge. Holiday: the clause is a simultaneous product of all three systems of options and since texts are realized through clauses. It is inevitably, that such knowledge should form the basis of a skilled action, which creates discourse. It is equally clear that knowledge of that kind and in 2 languages must not just form a major part or a translator competence, but the clause must be the major focus of translation itself.
The background: Only while reading you pursuit, to the point when translation is absolutely denominated.
48. Memory system (episodic and conceptual memory)
49. Addressing systems (recall from memory)
The model if the Human information processing must account for the following: 1) The sensory stimuli, received by the senses and transmitted to the brain by processing are not organized, 2) The processing system is able to convert and input which consists of continuous stimuli to a discrete units of data 3) The signals, once received should be converted into a meaningful message 4) The enormous quantity of information could be processed, stored and retrieved and reused with apparent ease and accurace
There are 3 stages, which are conveyed in the HIP, each associated with a specific storage system can be distinguished in a process: 1. Reception - filtering - storage of initially processed information by a sensory information system 2. Final analysis - temporary term storage - second filtering of the data by the short-term memory system 3. Accessing of long-term memory system and integrating new information within the long-term memory system database.
The model outlined suggests that there are 3 parts of the model - LTS, SS. SIS
The first stage of the process is handled by sensory information systems, which makes a record of a stimulus in a form of an image. The human brain through the sensory systems of a body receives the vast quantity of information all the time. There must be a filter, which can reject all but the information in which the system is paying attention to at any given time (sensory register or sensory information store, which provides a completed and detailed report of a stimulus). The role of this stage is crucial since it converts sensory stimuli, which are essentially chaotic and continuous into a unit of information, which is necessary for the further processing. It is at this point when sensation becomes perception, and we have moved from awareness into along the first step in a process that lead to cognition. The second stage current thinking that is present in cognitive science suggests that the short-term memory is not a simple store but possesses active characteristics as well. Hence, the term working memory is now more common than the earlier short-term memory. The third stage is the long-term memory that has both active and passive aspects, which constitutes a long-memory system. 1) An accessing system, which allows new data to be put into the storing system and existing stored data to be accessed. 2) Database in which all data is stored
There are 3 types of processing existing: 1. Bottom-up processing 2. Top-down processing 3. Interactive processing
The bottom-up processing is data-driven, because it begins with input of “raw” material as implies into a discrete meaningful units of information. Sensory system is an informational raw material. SIS that is transmitting of the information. Top-down processing in contrast with the bottom-up processing is really concept-drive. Begins with the assumption and hypothesis about the nature of data and six regularities in it, which confirm those assumptions. Bottom-up with the top-down comply the interactive processing, which permits processing to take place simultaneously in both directions with each processing feeding the other with information and eventually arriving to an agreed conclusion. Those subsystems are: image feature, cognitive system, system of decision, supervising system to come to long-term information storage. Demons respectively: feature, cognitive, decision, accessing, supervising. A theory is an explanation of a phenomenon (theoretical explanation), model = physical embodiment of a theory. The figure (model) suggests that 3 types of demons are required (subsystems) to carry out the following operations: 1. To convert the sensory information into the image 2. To analyze images in terms of their component features 3. to gather bangles of features to distinguish body from the object 4. to categorize patterns 5. To coordinate these operations and facilitate them by drawing on information stored in a long term memory system
So the first is image demon charged with the task of converting the stimuli received from the sensory system. This demon takes the incoming data and converts it into an image. It records the image and transmits it to the next group of demons for further analysis. Second is feature demon which receives information from the image demon, scans it in order to ascertain features they possess. Each demon is responsible to a single feature and only responding to a one. Third is a cognitive demon is known as receiving an image and simultaneously making a record of the existence of features and coding parameters representing those features from a feature demon. The cognitive demon also compares an image and its partial analysis with the pattern it already possesses, the image which fits best with an existing pattern, is what will be passed on to a final processor. Abbreviations
t.t. - translation theory S.L - source language T.L. - target language Dp - distribution pattern Tp - translation ranking ST - source text FT - formulation translation IT - instantaneous translation CT - consecutive translation SiT - simultaneous translation TT - translated text LoT - language of translation SF - semantic field LD - language density DoT - density of translation TTR - type-token ration SC - syntactical complexity GrC - grammatical complexity TF - transititvity function IF - interactive function
