thesis about translation studies

Theoretical Contributions to Translation Studies

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• Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen 7 ,
• Bo Wang 8 ,
• Yuanyi Ma 9 &
• Isaac N. Mwinlaaru 10  

Part of the book series: The M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics Series ((TMAKHLFLS))

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This chapter, as a sequel to the first part of the interview on translation in Chap. 8 , further examines issues related to Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and translation studies. We discuss the acceptance of the term “systemic functional translation studies” in academia. Then, we comment on the contributions made by various scholars, including J. R. Firth, Erich Steiner and his group, Mona Baker, Juliane House, and J. R. Martin. Finally, we explain the relationship between SFL and some other translation theories, including skopos theory, polysystem theory and descriptive translation studies.

A version of this chapter was first published in Linguistics and the Human Sciences . The detailed information is as follows: Matthiessen, Christian M.I.M., Bo Wang & Yuanyi Ma. 2017. “Interview with Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen: On translation studies (part II).” Linguistics and the Human Sciences 13(3): 339–359. © Equinox Publishing Ltd. [2017].

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The Paradoxical Relationship Between Schleiermacher’s Approach and the Functional Translation Theory

Translation Studies in Contemporary China: Retrospect, Reflection, and Prospect

Friedrich schleiermacher’s legacy to contemporary translation studies.

From the point of view of our notion of multilingual studies, it is noteworthy that the map separates “translation studies” from other multilingual phenomena (contrast e.g., Catford, 1965 ; Ellis, 1966 ), including the closely related phenomena of code switching and code mixing — closely related at least in the sense that they also presuppose a mastery by speakers of a multilingual meaning potential.

As I noted in Sect.  8.1 , I tend to avoid the term “Systemic Functional Translation Studies”, or “SFTS”, especially if there is a risk of an institutionalized interpretation in order to ensure that investigations of translation are located within the realm of multilingual and metalingual phenomena charted in Fig.  9.2 . Regarding “SFTS”, I tend to avoid acronyms in general unless they are widely known in the community. While acronyms make good Zipfian sense, they can exclude students and scholars who are not part of the community of users; they must look them up when they come across them. So since readers use Systemic Functional Linguistics in so many different areas of activity, there are always some likely to be puzzled by SFTS, GM, IR and other acronyms coined by users in one particular area. But there are of course always competing motivations in naming choices (as in other choices).

Her Ph.D. (Teich 1995 ) was on the computational linguistic modelling of Systemic Functional Grammar, which considered how representational issues could be addressed, informed by other frameworks within the unification-based family of approaches.

In this respect, I departed from Catford (1965), who defined translation (p. 20) as “the replacement of textual material in one language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language (TL)”.

It is also, of course, relevant to other metalinguistic processes involving resemioticization , notably editing, revision, summarization — in principle, any recreation of meaning involving new versions of a text relative to the meaning potential that lies behind it (cf., Fig.  9.2 ).

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Matthiessen, C.M., Wang, B., Ma, Y., Mwinlaaru, I.N. (2022). Theoretical Contributions to Translation Studies. In: Systemic Functional Insights on Language and Linguistics. The M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics Series. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8713-6_9

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Recent masters dissertation topics in Translation Studies

'The Influence of Cross-cultural Factors on Interpreters’ Roles in the Medical Setting in New Zealand: Revisiting the Code of Ethics (AUSIT) from a Chinese Perspective' - Yi Liang 'Exploring the Concept of Fidelity in Official English-Chinese Movie Title Translation under Skopostheorie' - Zhang Sun 'Translation of Vulgarism in Film in light of Nida’s Dynamic Equivalence Theory: A Case Study of the American Comedy Ted ' - Angel Chou 'A Derbyshire Gamekeeper from Rural China: The Translation Strategies for Code-switching in Lady Chatterley’s Love r' - Haiping Nui 'On Chinese-English Translation of Public Signs from the Perspective of Functionalist Theories' - Qinming Tian 'News Translation under Government Censorship' - Juechen Shao 'The Translation Action and Quality – A Case Study of the Chinese Translation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ' - Jing Fu 'Translating Humour in Subtitle Translation as seen in the Case of Big Bang Theory ' - Ruwei Zhang 'The End Justified the Means: Self-translation Strategies in Eileen Chang’s The Golden Cangue ' - Jasmine Luo 'Application of a Concept System and Translation Strategies – With Reference to Hang Gliding' - John Burton 'How News Translation in New Zealand Chinese Media Has Influenced the Chinese Ethnic Group’s Integration into the Host Society' - Lu Zheng 'Translation Industry and Translation Training in Japan' - Yutaka Kato 'The Evaluation of Certification System for Translators in China: From a Perspective of Market Demand' - Yishan Wang 'Translate the Untranslatable  - The Analysis of Humour Translation in Subtitling' - Yanning Zhang 'Translation Strategies for Bilateral Agreement Translation: A Case Study of NZ – China FTA' - Heida Donegan 'Never Mind the Bollocks!’ – Exploring the Vulgarism Translation of an American Film, The Town , from English to Chinese under Nida’s Equivalence Approach' - Anna Guo 'The Application of Translation Strategies in Feudal China (1896 – 1916) in the Light of the Rewriting Concept under the Cultural Turn: A Case Study of the Chinese Versions of Sherlock Holmes' - Kylie Ke 'Strategies for Maintaining Cultural Identity in Subtitle Translation in the Globalization Era: A Case Study of Ang Lee’s Pushing Hands ' - I-Tser Nieh 'Issues of Legal Translation in Comparative Legal Systems: A Critical Analysis of the Approaches and Strategies' - Seng-Yu Tsai 'Practical Issues of Accuracy in Court Interpreting' - Ming Chang 'On Translation of Idioms in the Light of Skopostheorie: A Case Study of the Two English Versions of Hong Lou Meng ' -  Zhaolong Yang 'The Importance of Comparison Strategy in the Study of Translation between Chinese and English' - Siyi Yang 'Translation Incompetence Led to Mistranslations: In Search for the Translation Competence through Mistranslation Analysis' - Ji Hyun Lee

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MA Translation Studies

Extended translation projects.

• English Translation of a mini-anthology of texts from the Deutsche Zeitschrift für Sportmedizin on the shared topic of marathon running , David Twyman

Dissertations

•  * Translation Types and Repetition: A Finnish Version of Psalm 49 Evaluated , Sirkku Carey
• * Strategies for Translating Idioms and Culturally-Bound Expressions Within the Human Development Genre , Noor Balfaqeeh
• * Acknowledging and establishing the hierarchy of expertise in translator-reviser scenarios as an aid to the process of revising translations ,  Spencer Allman
• * Upgrading Film Subtitling to the Level of Literary Translation , Alexandra Palmer 
• Norms in the Chinese translations of Adam Smith's 'The Wealth of Nations' (1776) , Lung Jan Chan
• A study on the narrator's voice in the chinese translation of A Room of One's Own , Law Tsz   Sang
• The Use of Translation as a Teaching Technique within the Context of Learning English as a Foreign Language in Greece by Elena Arkadi.
• A Theological Approach to Equivalence: Comparing Judeo-Christian Belief with Shinto/Buddhist Thought by Dianne Cook.
• The Translation of Culture-Specific Items: An Analysis of Helen Fielding’s ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ and its Greek Translation by Dimitra Panagioutou.
• Analysis of Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders and its Greek Translation by Eleni Panagioutou
• Medical Interpreting: Serving the Needs of Linguistic Minority Groups in the City of Birmingham by Alexandra Roupakia.
• Translating Behaviour in the Late Qing Period: A Case Study of Lin Shu and His Translation of Robinson Crusoe by Chan Iut Va
• Investigating the Issue of Translation Policy in a Multicultural Urban Setting: Birmingham  by Dominika Brzezina.
• The Subtitling of Film and the Strategies used in the Translation of Humour: An Evaluative Overview by Anastasia Doulakaki.
• Comparison and Contrast of Two Greek Translations of Tennesse Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire by Fotini Sagmatapoulou.
• *Anthologies of Modern Greek Poetry Translated into English (1974-2000): What the Introductions Say by Anna Tsapoga.
• Winnie the Pooh's Most Grand Adventure and Its Multi-media Translations into Greek by Sotiroula Yiasemi.
• Translating Culture-Specific References: A Study on Lu HSun's " The True Story of Ah Q" and Its English Translation by Siu Mui Yim
• Assessing Acceptability of a Translated Linguistics Book , by Ida Dewi.
• The Representation of Gender in Shakespeare's King Lear. A Critical Analysis of the English Text and Three Greek Translations , by Dimitra Kouskoubekou.
• * Media and Translation: The Influence of Cultural Views on the Translation of Newsweek into Japanese , by Chie Otani.
• Translation and Media: A Comparative Analysis of Cosmopolitan and its Greek Translation , by George Papaioannou.
• Translation Issues and Cultural Diversity in English - Greek Specialist Magazines , by Chrysanthi Pelekou.
• A History of Early Translation into Japanese: How the Translations Made in the Meiji Era Contributed to the Modernization of Japan , by Atsuko Takano.
• Translation Strategies for Dealing with Cultural Issues in Two Kimiiru Bible Versions and the Theological Implications of the Translation , by John Ataya.
• Translating Humour. A Comparative Analysis between English and Greek , by Emmanouela Fanouraki.
• The Translation of Metaphors in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger by Alexandra Geka.
• The Art of Translating Poetry - A Focus on Processes , by Kiriaki Mela
• A Discussion on the Translation of Slang and Taboo Words in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction , by Ioannis Melissopoulos.
• An Analysis of Cohesive Patterns in an English text and its Japanese Translation , by Miki Nakamura.
• Textual Issues in Translation. An Analysis of the Opening Section of a German Annual Report and its English Translation , by Konrad Schafer.
• News on the World Wide Web and Translation , by Man Yee Tai.
• Theme and Topic Translation: From English into Chinese , by Feng-Mei Chao.
• Intertextuality in Two of Cavafy's Poems and Their Translation into English , by Antigoni Kantrantzi.
• Transferring Dialect: An Analysis of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting and its Greek Translation , by Eirini Koufaki.
• Information Selection and Cohesion: A Case Study of Thai Translations of English International News Broadcast on Channel 5 TV News , by Usana Larbprasertporn.
• European Parliamentary Debates: Interpersonal Choices and Translation , by Giovanna G. Marcelli.
• Gender and Translation. How Women are Represented in Language , by Yoshiko Shimizu.
• Translating Salina into English: Loss and Compensation , by Intan Safinaz Zainuddin.
• Across Culture - Taking the Translation of Food, Modes of Address and Animals as Examples in the Chinese version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , by Fu-Chi Chen.
• Training Interpreters: An Evaluation of USM Interpreting Courses , by Leelany Ayob.
• Wordplay in English and Italian. Written Adverts and the Implications for Translation , by Maria Antonietta Armao.
• Transferring Drama: A Study of Two Translations of Harold Pinter's Old Times into Greek , by Evangelia Chaidemenou.
• Cohesion: A Translation Perspective , by Adamantia Karali.
• The Role of the Court Interpreter , by Evan Nga-Shan Ng
• Transitivity and the Translation Process: An Examination of the Shifts that Occur in Translation from Italian to English , by Lorraine Quinn-Adriano.
• Loss and Compensation in Translation: An Analysis of a Japanese Text and Its Translations , by Tomoko Kudo.
• The Translations of Metaphors in Newspaper Articles (English <=> Greek) , by Dimitra Sorovou.
• The Translation of Address Forms from New Testament (Greek into Dobel) by John Hughes.
• A Study of Compensation: A Comparative Analysis of Two Spanish Translations of Ulysses , by Gema Echevarria.

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Thesis on Translation

Related Papers

Journal of Modern Languages

Aynaz Samir

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the current curriculum for M.A. English translation in Iranian universities regarding the students’ perspectives to find its deficiencies and to propose some recommendations to make the curriculum compatible with students’ needs. The study was done based on a quantitative research design using a researcher-made questionnaire. The questionnaire was administrated to 341 M.A. and Ph.D. translation students in Iran. The data from the questionnaire were analyzed in descriptive statistics and an independent samples t-test. The results revealed that the current curriculum was moderately effective in providing the students with the necessary translation competencies. The results indicated some courses including Translation Workshop, and Theories of Translation were effective. Whereas, some courses such as Literary Criticism, and Philosophy of Education were not effective enough to improve students’ theoretical knowledge a...

Hamid Marashi , Elmira Mohammadi

This study sought to evaluate the graduate program of Translation Studies in terms of training expert translators in the field of humanities and social sciences. In so doing, 87 students studying in the first and third semesters from Islamic Azad University at Central Tehran, South Tehran, and Science and Research Center were selected and they participated in the study. Accordingly, the students were first homogenized based on their general English Proficiency and then took a translation ability test consisting of four different texts. The translations were scored according to Hurtodo’s rubric by three raters who enjoyed inter-rater consistency. Based on the statistical analysis of the gathered data, it was concluded that the third-semester students showed higher mean scores on the four types of the translation texts all of which were statistically significant. Thus the null hypothesis of this study stating that the MA Translation Studies program had no significant effect on the students’ translation ability was rejected.

Research in English Language Pedagogy

This study aims to investigate the program of Translation Studies, offered in Iranian universities at the level of Master, in terms of its curriculum through a needs analysis model offered by Altschuld and Witkin (1995). To do so, after a review of the related literature and conducting a documentary analysis, the researchers chose to look at the issue from different perspectives. Current instructors, professionals who are involved in the business of translation and a number of graduated students were interviewed so as to gather enough data to design a questionnaire, which constitute the backbone of the study. Since the study aims at students' perception, the survey was conducted on students of Translation Studies program, which was based on the interviews with instructors, graduates of the program and the professionals working in the market. Afterward, the questionnaire data were gathered and, subsequently, went under statistical procedures. Based on the results, the researchers came up with practical recommendations for curriculum renewal, based on the needs-analysis model adopted. As this study has adopted a triangulation approach to investigate the curriculum, the results and recommendations, although limited, can be of great use to educators, curriculum developers and translator trainers in particular.

Antar Abdellah

European Online Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Seyed Mohammad Hosseini-Maasoum

The present study, in the first place, attempted to examine the relationship between the theoretical knowledge of translation and practical translation skills in Iranian translators. For this purpose, 35 M.A students both males and females studying English translation were selected in Mashhad Ferdowsi University in Iran. In order to collect data two tests were applied: one made up of questions selected from the Ph.D and M.A entrance exams together with a test of actual translation from Persian to English and the reverse. Data analysis and statistical calculations through T-TEST, one way ANOVA and Pearson Correlation revealed that participants’ theoretical knowledge does not displays a significant correlation with their scores in the English to Persian practical exams, while there is a positive relationship between participants’ scores in the theoretical exams and their Persian to English translation. Also it was found that participants’ experimental experiences in translation have a...

Theory and Practice in Language Studies

bahram mowlaie

Concerning the significant role of translation as a significant field which contributes to intercultural communication, assigning valid criteria for teaching translation is necessary to make sure that the best practices are employed by instructors’ to teach translation skills. This, in return, would help translation students be equipped with better translation skills. However, little research has been conducted to see what training practices translation instructors employ in their translation training classrooms. More significantly, it has been little research to determine the criteria that are behind the practices instructors employ in their translation training classroom. The purpose of the current research was to determine what practices instructors follow in their English translation classrooms and what criteria are behind these practices. To serve this purpose, the classrooms of ten English translation instructors were observed in an Iranian academic context using an observatio...

Saeed Ameri

English and Persian translator training have been offered by many Iranian universities as an undergraduate program nation-wide. However, the program failed to keep up with the dynamics of the market demands, findings of Translation Studies research, and varied competences of students in the past two decades. This study investigated the Iranian English translator trainees’ perspectives on the former curriculum that was used for over twenty years. The other aim was to understand whether their needs and wants correspond to either of the old and the recently revised curriculum in 2018. Based on focus group interviews and literature review, a questionnaire was designed and validated, and the survey responses of over five hundred English and translator trainees (351 females & 152 males) from twelve universities in Iran were statistically analyzed. The findings revealed that the courses related to translation practice were ranked as the most important component of the curriculum by the tra...

Journal of Language and Translation

iman askari

The study was aimed at investigating the effectiveness of methods of teaching Translation Courses (TCs) used by Iranian instructors on English-major students’ translation proficiency development. To this end, 156 homogeneous students were selected as the participants to undergo quantitative and qualitative data collection simultaneously through a convergent parallel mixed methods design. The data were collected using a sample language proficiency test (PET), a translation pre& posttest, the Waddington TQA Rubric, and an interview as the instruments of the study. The quantitative data were analyzed using ANCOVA while the qualitative data were extracted through the procedure of content analysis by pinpointing and condensing meaning units as well as codifying and sorting the commonalities out of the comments extracted from the responses to the interviews. Finally, the two data banks were reported via SPSS software. It was concluded that the modern methods of teaching TCs had a signific...

European Journal of Contemporary Education

Vladimír Biloveský

Academic Journal of Nawroz University

lazgin barany

This study maintains that learners&#39; perspective and reactions towards learning any subject including Translation is of a vital importance to achieve the objectives and outcomes of that subject. This study aims at drawing a picture of translation teaching from students&#39; point of view and exploring students&#39; skills in translating to assess the existing methods and to reconsider objectives behind teaching this or that translation course. In order to achieve the aims of the study a questionnaire consisting of 22 items was given to 49 students; 40 (20 boys and 20 girls) from the English Department; and nine students (five boys and four girls) from the Translation Department, College of Humanities, University of Duhok, Iraq to find out their reactions on different issues related to the teaching and learning of translation at their departments. The items of the questionnaire tried to explore issues related to culture, courses, texts, exams, teachers and students&#39; reactions...

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