Process and text studies of a translation problem
Does metonymic language constitute a translation problem to translators? Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011) found that it took translation students more time not only to translate metonymic constructions than their non-metonymic counterparts, but also to produce a non-metonymic construction if the source text is metonymic than if it is non-metonymic. Three new case studies seem to confirm these preliminary findings. One study shows that a metonymic construction like Music took him around the world not only delays the translation onset time but also the remainder of the translation process. Another study inquiring into the impact of foreign source language competence level shows that with participants with a lower language competence level, too, the metonymic construction triggers a longer translation onset time than its counterpart. And our third study shows that translation direction also plays a role: in contrast with translation into L1, word translation from L2a into L2b of abstract nouns such as music may already be harder than that of human nouns. We conclude that the translation of metonymic utterances and their abstract agents requires more effort than that of non-metonymic utterances.
References (10)
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Immonen, Sini, and Jukka Mäkisalo. 2010. “Pauses Reflecting the Processing of Syntactic Units in Monolingual Text Production and Translation.” Hermes – Journal of Language and Communication Studies 44: 45–61.
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Schoonbaert, Sofie, Wouter Duyck, Marc Brysbaert, and Robert J. Hartsuiker. 2009. “Semantic and Translation Priming from a First Language to a Second and Back: Making Sense of the Findings.” Memory and Cognition 37 (5): 569–586. 

van Lawick, Heike. 2007. “Phraseologie und Übersetzung unter Anwendung von Parallelkorpora [Phraseology and translation with the use of parallel corpora].” In Doubts and Directions in Translation Studies: Selected Contributions from the EST Congress Lisbon 2004, ed. by Yves Gambier, Miriam Shlesinger, and Radegundis Stolze, 281–296. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 

Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Jiménez-Crespo, Miguel A. & Joseph V. Casillas
Porter, Nathan
2021.
Between the Cherubim: The ‘Mercy Seat’ as Site of Divine Revelation in Romans 3.25.
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 44:2
► pp. 284 ff.

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