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JOURNALOF InternationalScientificPublications: Language,IndividualƬSociety,Volume6,Partͳ Peer-ReviewedOpenAccessJournal Publishedat: http://www.scientific-publications.net PublishedbyInfoInvestLtd www.sciencebg.net ISSN1313-2547,2012,EuropeanUnion JournalofInternationalScientificPublications: Language,IndividualƬSociety,Volume6,Partͳ ISSN1313-2547,Publishedat:http://www.scientific-publications.net EditorinChief SofiaAgapova,Russia ExecutiveSecretary JunichiSuzuki,Japan AisluTassimova,Kazakhstan EditorialBoardMembers AlirezaValipour,Iran BozenaSupsakova,Slovakia EvdokiaLobanova,Russia ElenaMurugova,Russia GalinaSinekopova,USA IrinaSidorcuka,Latvia IgorKlyukanov,USA NezihaMusaoglu,Turkey OliveraGajic,Serbia SunilMishra,India SimonaStanisiu,Romania SibelTuran,Turkey SvetlanaPrishtenko,Ukraine TamaraBirsanu,Romania VladimirZhdanov,Japan TatianaArtyukhova,Russia PublishedbyInfoInvest,Bulgaria,www.sciencebg.net 2 JournalofInternationalScientificPublications: Language,IndividualƬSociety,Volume6,Partͳ ISSN1313-2547,Publishedat:http://www.scientific-publications.net PublishedinAssociationwithScienceƬEducationFoundation AnypapersubmittedtothejournalofInternationlScientificPublications: Language,IndividualƬSocietyǦshouldNOTbeunderconsiderationfor publicationatanotherjournal.Allsubmittedpapersmustalsorepresentoriginal work,andshouldfullyreferenceanddescribeallpriorworkonthesamesubject andcomparethesubmittedpapertothatwork. 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PublishedbyInfoInvest,Bulgaria,www.sciencebg.net 3 JournalofInternationalScientificPublications: Language,IndividualƬSociety,Volume6,Partͳ ISSN1313-2547,Publishedat:http://www.scientific-publications.net MULTIDISCIPLINARY TRANSLATION – A PRACTICAL METHOD IN THE AGE OF MASS INFORMATION Alexandru Anghel Babes-Bolyai University, Romania, Cluj-Napoca, 1, Mihail Kogalniceanu St. Abstract My aim in this paper is to formulate an efficient and timesaving descriptive method for text assessment and translation in the light of accessibility to a diverse array of virtual databases. This method and its application is the result of over seven years of practice in text translation from different periods of time and from different cultures and traditions (foundational religious texts, philosophical texts from dead and alive languages). Based on this experience and with the aid of specific examples from practice, I will sketch a method of translation and investigation based on horizontal (geographical) and vertical (temporal) criteria that can facilitate an efficient and timesaving enterprise by taking into account the relevant tools necessary for research (databases, dictionaries, concept contextualization etc.). This article addresses primarily to translators and editors of specialized materials (books, articles, etc.) from fields like philosophy, religion (critical editions), and natural and social science in general (i.e. popularizing books and articles related to physics, neuroscience, biology, etc.). Key words: internet, database, translation theory, temporal criterion, geographical criterion, skopos, equivalence, source text, target text, cultural gap. Before discussing the more practical aspects of translation, I should first give an outline of some of the major theories of translation that are taken into consideration by the professionals in this field. Broadly speaking, I consider translation to be any reformulation and refitting of information. This operation can be performed both by humans and by different computer programs. In the case of humans, this process occurs on multiple levels of communication from daily conversation between two people who use the same language and have the same background to the translation of a four thousand years old papyrus fragment or the interpretation of the still older cave paintings. In the case of programs, this process is occurs, for example, in the case of translation software and in the case of every document or image reading software. So, every time you read a text or talk to someone, you reformulate and refit information on a certain degree, you translate data in order to understand based on personal experience, background knowledge and cognitive ability. But this approach to translation comprehends much more aspects of human activity, which is not the aim of this paper. Here we are interested in the translation that pertains to the field of linguistics in particular, in the transference of information from a language to a different language. We are interested in the “source text” and the “target text”, in the human agent that lies between the two and his role in the process of translation. Translation is a very ancient human enterprise. But theorizing about translation started to be taken seriously only in the last hundred years or so. Certainly, there are older “theorists”, like Cicero or Thomas Aquinas, who formulated some principles that can be used in a theory of translation, but only with the beginning of the twentieth century, in Western Europe, translation became a subject of PublishedbyInfoInvest,Bulgaria,www.sciencebg.net 4 JournalofInternationalScientificPublications: Language,IndividualƬSociety,Volume6,Partͳ ISSN1313-2547,Publishedat:http://www.scientific-publications.net interest for theorists in its own right (Pym 2010). Now, discussions on the theory of translation had become a complex matter, with different sides and paradigms. I believe that this phenomenon is due in part to the fact that our modern society is becoming more complex, facing new challenges and new ways of communication, but also to the fact that, to use the words of Eugene Nida, “the processes of translating can be viewed from so many different perspectives: stylistics, author’s intent, diversity of languages, differences of corresponding cultures, problems of interpersonal communication, changes in literary fashion, distinct kinds of content (e.g. mathematical theory and lyric poetry), and the circumstances in which translations are to be used, e.g. read in the tranquil setting of one’s own living room, acted on the theatre stage, or blared from a loudspeaker to a restless mob” (Nida 1991, 20). In the modern era, the process of translation has as many definitions as the number theorists that formulate or conceptualize it. So we can cite five important definitions that use a stricter or wider sense (Geryzmisch-Arbogast 2005, 4; Pym 2010): - Translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source-language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style (Nida & Taber 1969, 12). - Translation may be defined as follows: the replacement of textual material in one language [source language] by equivalent textual material in another language [target language] (Catford 1965, 20). - 1) Intralingual translation or rewording is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language. 2) Interlingual translation or translation proper is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language. 3) Intersemiotic translation or transmutation is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbial sign systems (Jakobson 1959/2004, 233). - [Translation] leads from a source-language text to a target-language text which is as close an equivalent as possible and presupposes an understanding of the content and style of the original (Wilss 1982, 62). - Ein Translat ist ein Informationsangebot in einer Zielkultur und -sprache über ein Informationsangebot au seiner Ausgangskultur und -sprache (Reiss &Vermeer 1984, 119). These definitions refer primarily to a kind of directionality in the process of translation. We have, on the one side, the “source text” or the “source-language” which we transform into the “target text” or the “receptor language”. This transformation or transmutation is a complex phenomenon that encompasses a wide variety of solutions. There are many theories and concepts that describe possible ways to accomplish such a task, and which determine the strategies involved in a translation process. The theologian, philosopher, and translator Friedrich Schleiermacher (1813) considers that translators have two general possibilities: to foreignize or to domesticate a translation. His description is as follows: “Either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as possible, and moves the reader toward that author, or the translator leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author toward that reader” (Pym 2010, 31). I think that there is no universal choice between these two options, and that there are conditions in which one option will have preeminence over the other. I will discuss the possible cases in which we will have one or the other option later on. PublishedbyInfoInvest,Bulgaria,www.sciencebg.net 5 JournalofInternationalScientificPublications: Language,IndividualƬSociety,Volume6,Partͳ ISSN1313-2547,Publishedat:http://www.scientific-publications.net Further, with reference to the level of word and phrase, the German theorist