简论语境在科技英语翻译中的作用

近几年来随着对外交流活动的日益频繁和科学技术的飞速发展,针对科学技术领域的翻译活动日益增加,然而目前科技英语翻译仍然存在许多质量问题,如误译、漏译、句意模糊、翻译文本可读性差等。针对这些问题,本文在科技英语翻译中引入了语境的概念,结合科技英语的特点,简要论述了语境在科技英语翻译中的作用。     

简论语境在科技英语翻译中的作用

近几年来随着对外交流活动的日益频繁和科学技术的飞速发展,针对科学技术领域的翻译活动日益增加,然而目前科技英语翻译仍然存在许多质量问题,如误译、漏译、句意模糊、翻译文本可读性差等。针对这些问题,本文在科技英语翻译中引入了语境的概念,结合科技英语的特点,简要论述了语境在科技英语翻译中的作用。     

略论翻译中文本误读的基本层面

上乘的翻译来自于对文本的准确解读,但在翻译的过程中,因为译者自身的局限性,经常因文本误读而导致误译。文本误读集中表现在语法、语义及语境层面上。本文旨在对这三个层面进行简要分析,并指出只有努力克服文本解读的失误,才能避免误译,使翻译达到较为理想的境界。     

从认知语境看《高级英语》教学参考书中的误译

关联理论的认知语境角度可以用来探讨《高级英语》教学参考书中的误译现象：一是认知语言语境差异引起关联缺失导致误译;二是对认知情景语境转换不当导致误译;三是对认知文化语境生疏导致误译。而遵循最佳关联原则是避免误译和进行合理创造的必要条件。     

语境理论对科技翻译的解释力

从语境的两个层面（语言语境和非语言语境）对语境理论在科技翻译中的应用作了剖析,阐释了语境理论对正确理解源出语的内涵及避免在语义翻译转换过程中出现误解与误译的重要性。理解原文是科技翻译成败的关键,而语境分析则是获得正确的语义转换的重要手段之一。     

美国法庭剧Boston Legal字幕误译探析

本文以深受好评的由风软美剧字幕组翻译的Boston Legal第一季的第一集字幕为例,分析其字幕误译的三种类型:缺乏逻辑分析剧本对白的语境而导致的误译;缺乏文化背景知识导致的误译和翻译态度不严谨导致的误译,并给出相应的避免类似误译的建议。     

关联理论视角下的文化误译研究

20世纪80年代以来,翻译的"文化转向"开拓了翻译研究的新视野,翻译研究从语言层面转向文化层面,翻译被看作是两种文化之间的交流。关联理论对翻译具有强大的解释力,用其分析翻译中的文化误译现象可以发现,充分照顾到译文读者认知语境的有意误译,使得译文读者只需付出很少的推理努力便能找到原文与其语境假设的最佳关联。译者也应发挥主体性与创造性,避免无意文化误译的产生,并充分运用有意文化误译以更好地实现翻译目的。     

借帆出海:也说葛浩文的“误译”

葛浩文的翻译与原文信息有所偏离的现象看似不少,但仔细考察其译文,我们发现,有些偏离,也就是有的文章批评的改译或所谓的"误译",实为译者出于接受的考虑对原文本做出的创造性重构。本文以莫言的中短篇小说集和几部长篇小说的英译为例,探讨葛氏如何在"误译"的表象之下,有时一词多译,有时唯意是图,有时得意忘形,有时也难免误读误译,但又瑕不掩瑜,避免了机械对等和简单愚忠,从而超越了归化和异化等传统翻译技巧和理念,极大提高了译文在目标语语境的可接受性。     

从译文失误看语境在理解中的作用

从语境角度对《大学英语 (修订本 )》第 1册教师用书译文中几处误译进行探讨 ,提出应从语境角度出发才能正确地理解原文的确切含义 ,以免造成误译     

语境对减少误译的作用

语境是语言交际不可忽视的一个重要因素,语境分析是理解和翻译的基础。本文把语境分为话语语境、情景语境和文化语境,探讨了语境对减少误译的作用。     

Pedagogy in the multimodal classroom: an analysis of the challenges and opportunities for teachers

Contemporary commentary notes that students are frequently ahead of their teachers in their ability to manipulate and be creative with the internet, digital programs, and mobile technology. In this context it is important to ask, ‘What knowledge do teachers need to teach in the contemporary context where texts are elaborately multimodal, constructed not just of print but of image, sound, and movement?’ This paper proposes some signposts to assist teachers with navigating in this environment. Using teachers’ and researchers’ reflections on practices in a diverse range of settings, both primary and secondary, the analysis explicates the challenges that teachers face in this multimodal context and elucidates some ways they can effectively operate within it. In particular, it argues that it is teachers’ expertise as analysts and critics of texts that needs to guide their planning and teaching in this ‘new’ text world.     

科技英语文本中文化信息的体现及其翻译再现

随着各国交流日益密切以及借鉴外来先进技术的需要,科技英语翻译在中国扮演着越来越重要的角色。目前,科技英语翻译的研究中心仍然是围绕其术语、表达及结构特色进行。为了达到生动、鲜明、亲切的效果,文化因素逐渐被植入科技英语中。文章从文化语境着手,分析科技英语中文化信息的体现,研究在科技翻译中如何使文化语境得到再现,旨在提高科技翻译工作者在翻译过程中的文化敏感度。     

Multicultural Children’s Literature as a Context for Teaching Mathematics for Cultural Relevance in Urban Schools

This article reports on a teacher-research study that used multicultural texts as a context for teaching mathematics for cultural relevance during an elementary mathematics methods course. The results of the study reveal that 28 % (5 out of 18) of the teacher candidates (TCs) chose books that were culturally contextual or culturally amenable. However, 89 % (16 out of 18) of the TCs chose texts that were mathematically robust or mathematically peripheral. Four focal TCs were selected to examine how they used the texts with children to teach mathematics concepts. Math lessons fostered academic success, cultural competence, and critical consciousness. Overall, the results of the study are mixed. We conclude that some TCs’ choice of texts may reflect indifference, passive resistance, low self-efficacy, school culture, and mixed messages from the teacher–researcher. Additional studies that include follow-up interviews and classroom observations are needed to determine the factors that influence TCs’ selections of multicultural texts and their implementation of culturally relevant pedagogy with students.     

Book Review

This essay considers how teaching and learning may have functioned in late antique Roman classrooms by examining two texts: one is from the teacher’s perspective, the other – which, until recently, was unedited – provides some access to the student’s perspective. Despite much recent scholarly work on education in antiquity, there has been no attempt to bring teachers’ and students’ perspectives together through two contemporary sources from the Latin-speaking West. The first text is by Servius, a late antique teacher, whose Commentary provides detailed analysis of Virgil. The other comprises the Colloquia, containing ‘real life’ dialogues in Latin and Greek set in a school context. Through this comparison, the author aims to shed some light on what may have happened in a Latin-speaking classroom in late antiquity.     

Education and nationalism: the discourse of education policy in Scotland

The paper draws on critical discourse analysis to examine and discuss some of the key developments in the governing of education in Scotland since the election of the Scottish National Party (SNP) government in May 2007. It analyses these developments, drawing on a study of key policy texts and suggests that discourse analysis has much to contribute to the understanding of the governing strategy of the minority SNP administration as reflected in its education policy. We suggest that there is a self-conscious strategy of ‘crafting the narrative’ of government that seeks to discursively re-position ‘smarter Scotland’ alongside small, social democratic states within the wider context of transnational pressures for conformity with global policy agendas. Thus the paper connects to current debates on the relationship between an emergent global education policy ‘field’ and the capacity of ‘local’ contexts to develop and sustain particular, embedded assumptions and practices.     

Transformation of text in the English classroom: does ‘context’ really matter?

This paper investigates the language demands of creating texts in the English classroom, which involve transformations in context. In particular, it focuses on the tensions inherent in tasks which require more traditional textual analysis to be presented in ways other than traditional ‘essay’ format. These tasks are interpreted differently by students and can result in texts which vary in terms of their choice of ‘written‐like’ or ‘spoken‐like’ styles. This paper uses data from year nine English students presenting speeches to an imagined jury arguing for Shakespeare's Macbeth's guilt or innocence and explores the implications of shifts along the mode continuum evident in the students' language. It raises the question of the relative importance of transformations of language and context and the extent to which control of mode is valued. Language analysis of student responses focusing on genre, periodicity, use of vocatives and endophoric reference suggests the imagined context required by the task is less important than the literary context in assessing student responses and can act as a distraction. Findings have implications for alignment of teaching and assessment practices in English classrooms.     

Knowledge transfer in the context of refutation texts

In this study, we examined the conditions under which readers are able to transfer revised knowledge as a result of reading refutation texts (i.e. texts that explicitly state and refute a misconception). Across three experiments, participants read refutation texts that addressed socioscientific and nonsocioscientific issues as well as transfer texts that were designed to reactivate the misconceptions addressed in refutation texts. In Experiments 1 and 2, the results indicate that reading a refutation text reduces interference from the misconception as participants read the transfer texts in close temporal distance, even when the misconception is reactivated. In Experiment 3, the results indicate that participants reading refutation texts could not transfer revised knowledge when the temporal distance between refutation texts and transfer texts increased. Students’ performance on pretest and posttest questionnaires also suggest that reading the refutation texts facilitated knowledge revision prior to transfer. We discuss the findings in the context of the Knowledge Revision Components Framework.     

Why School English Needs a ‘Good Enough’ Grammatics (and Not More Grammar)

At the dawn of a national curriculum for English in Australia, grammar has appeared without any serious interrogation of the terms of its re-entry and against ambiguous evidence about its value for teaching writing. What kinds of knowledge about language do teachers need in rhetorically productive teaching? This article investigates the potential of Halliday’s notion of grammatics for understanding students’ writing as acts of meaning in context. Drawing on systemic-functional linguistics, I show how teachers can assess writing achievement using ‘big picture’ tools like genre, register and ‘small picture’ tools like Expansion. I apply these tools to two student texts that call for attention to creative uses of language and to excursions and to difficulties with logic and coherence. The paper concludes that a ‘good enough’ grammatics will enable teachers to recognize playful developments in students’ texts and also to foster their control of literate discourse.     

Literacy,media and multimodality: a critical response

In recent years, literacy educators have increasingly recognised the importance of addressing a broader range of texts in the classroom. This article raises some critical concerns about a particular approach to this issue that has been widely promoted in recent years – the concept of ‘multimodality’. Multimodality theory offers a broadly semiotic approach to analysing a range of communicative forms. It has been widely taken up by literacy educators, initially at an academic level, and has begun to find its way into policy documents, teacher education and professional development and classroom practice. This article presents some criticisms, both of the theory itself and of the ways in which it has been taken up within the wider context of curriculum change. It argues that, in its popular usage, multimodality theory is being appropriated in a way that merely reinforces a long‐standing distinction between print and ‘non‐print’ texts. This contributes in particular to a continuing neglect of the specificity of moving image media – media that are central to the learning and everyday life experiences of young children. Drawing on recent classroom‐based research, the article concludes by offering some brief indications of an alternative approach to these issues.