Back to Basics: Transfer as a Metaphorical Process

Year 2017, Volume: 27 Issue: 1, 1 - 21, 21.11.2017

Rafael Carpıntero

Abstract

This paper is a reflection about written translation’s
transfer sub-competence as a two-folded process: a first moment of abstraction
while reading the source text and a second of concretion writing the target
text. These two mechanisms correlate directly with the paradigmatic and
syntagmatic axis of language as exposed by Saussure and Jakobson. If we
consider them as the two basic kinds of synecdoches, generalizing and particularizing,
the result would be that transfer between a pair of languages functions exactly
as metaphors do, according to the neo-rhetoric theories of the Group μ of Liège. In our line of reasoning, translation is
considered mainly from the point of view of a linguistic and, therefore, mental
process. However, translation competence is not exactly a linguistic competence
and its nature seems to be completely different. Obviously, it works with pairs
of languages instead of a single one, but it can still be related to some
processes observed by Jakobson in aphasic patients. These linguistic mechanisms
clearly connected with translation can be defined in terms of rhetoric figures,
especially tropes. We add an example of Turkish-Spanish translation analyzing
the problems presented by the differences of syntactic structures in both
languages.

Keywords

Transfer, Translational competence, Tropes, Paradigmatic axis, Syntagmatic axis

References

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