SLTES Open flashcards

34 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Cohesion versus coherence

Cohesion is the surface linking of text through reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical repetition. Coherence is the underlying logical connectedness a reader reconstructs. A text can be cohesive yet incoherent.

Grice's four maxims

Quantity, quality, relation, and manner describe cooperative communication. Flouting a maxim deliberately generates implicature, meaning the listener infers beyond the literal words. Translators must preserve the inference, not just the words.

Speech act dimensions

Every utterance has locutionary content (what is said), illocutionary force (the intended act, such as a promise or request), and perlocutionary effect (the hearer's response). Force often shifts across languages through modals and particles.

Theme and rheme

Theme is the clause-initial element telling what the message is about; rheme is the rest. English tolerates marked themes differently from topic-prominent languages, so word order often changes in translation.

Register axes

Register varies along formality, field (specialized domain), and mode (spoken or written). A change on any axis requires corresponding shifts in vocabulary and syntax in the target text.

End-weight and end-focus

English tends to place heavy or new information late in the clause. Languages with different information structure may require reordering when translating into or out of English.

Dynamic equivalence

Nida's principle that a translation should produce in the receptor a response equivalent to that of the source audience. It prioritizes naturalness and effect over mirroring surface structure.

Vinay and Darbelnet procedures

Seven translation procedures: borrowing, calque, and literal translation are direct; transposition, modulation, equivalence, and adaptation are oblique. Direct procedures are tried first, oblique ones when literal fails.

Skopos theory

Vermeer's claim that the purpose of the target text governs translation strategy. Adequacy to an explicit brief outranks fidelity to the source, so the brief must state function and audience.

Overt versus covert translation

House's distinction: an overt translation is visibly source-culture-bound and addressed to readers who know it is a translation; a covert translation functions as an original in the target culture.

Explicitation and implicitation

Explicitation adds information the source leaves implicit; implicitation removes it. Explicitation is a widely documented translation tendency; implicitation is riskier because it assumes shared background knowledge.

Translation brief contents

A brief should specify target function, audience, register, terminology source, deliverable format, deadline, and revision policy. These elements determine strategy before any drafting begins.

Unit of translation

The smallest text segment treated as a whole during translation, ranging from word to paragraph. It should be chosen by where meaning stays intact, not by sentence boundaries alone.

Back-translation

Translating a target text back into the source language to check equivalence. It is a validation tool for questionnaires and legal wording, not a production method, and it exposes ambiguity.

Ear-voice span

The lag, typically two to six seconds, between hearing source speech and producing the simultaneous interpretation. Managing it requires holding input, rendering output, and self-monitoring at once.

Consecutive note-taking layout

Notes use diagonal layout, one idea per line, symbols and abbreviations over words, arrows for direction and tense, and vertical brackets marking where ideas open and close.

Relay interpreting

A mode where one interpreter renders the source into a pivot language and another interprets from that pivot into the final language. It is used when no direct language pair is available.

Chuchotage

Whispered simultaneous interpreting for one or two listeners without equipment. It is physically taxing and unsuitable for groups, where portable receivers or full booths are required.

Sight translation

Rendering a written text orally at first sight. It combines reading comprehension with spoken production under time pressure and is often tested as a separate interpreting skill.

Interpreter rotation

Simultaneous teams rotate roughly every twenty to thirty minutes because fatigue degrades lexical retrieval before grammar. Rotation is a quality control measure, not a courtesy.

High versus low context

High-context cultures embed much meaning in situation and relationship, favoring indirect style; low-context cultures make meaning explicit in text. This predicts how much must be added in translation.

Hofstede dimensions

Power distance, individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation describe cultural tendencies. They inform register and politeness choices but must never be applied to individuals.

Culture-specific items

Realia such as foods, institutions, and festivals have four common renderings: transference as a loan, cultural substitution, descriptive paraphrase, and omission. Each carries a different reader cost.

Localization

Adapting content, format, and function to a target locale. It may require changing layout, currency, dates, legal notices, and images, going well beyond translating the words.

Taboo screening

Pre-delivery review for religious references, political entities, gendered forms, body and death terms, and alcohol or dietary references, which vary by market and can block publication.

Locale conventions

Date order, decimal separators, currency symbols, and name order differ by locale. East Asian family-name order and decimal commas are common sources of normalization errors.

Interpreter impartiality

Impartiality means not favoring any party while still correcting errors that change meaning. Interpreters must not soften, strengthen, summarize, or advocate for a speaker's position.

Confidentiality scope

Confidentiality covers spoken content, notes, recordings, glossaries, and drafts, and it survives the end of the assignment. A written agreement or NDA should define its limits.

Conflict of interest disclosure

Prior relationships with parties, financial interest in the outcome, or prior involvement as investigator or witness must be disclosed. Material conflicts require withdrawal from the assignment.

Competence boundary

Practitioners should decline work outside their language pairs, subject expertise, or mode, and refer it onward. Accepting work beyond competence breaches most professional codes of conduct.

Translation memory match types

Exact matches are identical segments, fuzzy matches are partial, and context matches occur in identical surrounding text. Fuzzy matches still need editing, so leverage rates overstate real savings.

Terminology entry fields

A concept-oriented term record holds the term, definition, part of speech, subject field, source, status, and context. One concept may map to several terms per language, including synonyms and variants.

MQM error typology

Multidimensional Quality Metrics classifies errors by type, such as accuracy, fluency, terminology, and style, and by severity, such as critical, major, and minor, enabling comparable scoring across vendors.

MT post-editing levels

Light post-editing makes machine output understandable and fixes critical errors; full post-editing reaches publishable quality with style alignment. The brief must specify which level is required.