Korolkova S. A. Cognitive Structure of Translation Algorithm

(Volgograd State University)

Abstract ♦ The understanding of translation as activity, which has gained ground in linguistics, stimulates the search for cognitive didactic approaches to teaching translation studies in higher school. The analysis of translation process helps develop its algorithm and determine a cognitive character of the translator’s actions.

In the article, translation is considered as a secondary bilingual textual activity and understood as a contact of two conceptual systems, the success of which is determined by the concordance of the so-called sense focuses in the course of comprehension and creation. A characteristic feature of the translator’s comprehension is its bilateral orientation: towards the author, i.e. the source text, and its recipient.

The translator is a specific recipient who has an ability to join the semantic and form-and-structure text content and create a source interpreted text which is motivated to become a stimulus for the production of a new text.

The production of the initial translated text is a variable reproduction of the interpreted source meanings, with variation depending on objective and subjective factors. Text production and comprehension are oriented toward the recipient and occur interactively by the shuttle method. The key mental action here is an abductive search, which allows the recombination of concepts and the choice of lexical means that objectify them. This makes translation possible not on the level of language, but on the conceptual cognitive level. The translator decides to make the necessary and motivated text transformations as determined by the difference of the speech norms, text type conventions, the recipient’s inferential abilities or the translator’s commission. While transforming the semantic and syntactic structure, the translator uses lexical units which do not have concordances and grammatical models unparalleled in the chosen languages, in order to objectify the derived conceptual model of the source text. Autocorrection lets the translator fully distance from the source text form and make the target text satisfy the criteria of “naturalness” and “conventionality”.

The translator’s competence level directly influences the causation of the form-and-structure level of the translated text.

The cognitive paradigm allows to take a new look at the translation process and understand the essence of the processes in the translator’s mind.

Keywords: cognitive structure, translation, translation algorithm, bilingual text activity, text understanding, text production, abductive search, recombination of concepts, autocorrelation.

Korolkova Svetlana Azadovna, Candidate of Pedagogy, Associate Professor, Department of Translation Theory and Practice, Volgograd State University. Postal address: 100 Universitetsky prospekt, Volgograd, Russian Federation, 40064. Tel.: +7 (8442) 405599 (ext. 16-12). E-mail: svetlanakrlkvavlg@yandex.ru

Citation: Korolkova, S. A. (2014) Kognitivnaia struktura algoritma pis'mennogo perevoda [Cognitive Structure of Translation Algorithm]. Znanie. Ponimanie. Umenie, no. 3, pp. 319–328. (In Russ.).

Submission date: 14.11.2013.

RUSSIAN VERSION

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