Interaction Of Internal Translation Mechanisms To Generate Translation Discourse

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to study the regularities of the generation of external interlanguage and intercultural translation by studying linguistic, psychological, cognitive mechanisms of internal translation. The problem of internal translation can be solved using the results of the study of internal speech problems within the framework of monolingual communication, which is reflected in the works of classics of Russian psychology, as well as in linguistic studies. The following provisions are accepted as fundamental: first, internal translation is preceded by internal speech as mental activity and internal speech as inward speech; second, external speech is based on internal speech both in conditions of everyday communication and of cross-cultural. The methodological basis of this research is Kushnina's concept of translation space presented in the form of a synergetic model of translation, the axiological dominant of which is the category of harmony. The result of the study is a description of the complex internal translation mechanism, which determines the external interlanguage and intercultural translation. The research shows that it is at the stage of internal translation that the synergy of the explicit-implicit meanings of the source text occurs, as well as the increment of new meanings following the expectations of the recipients. The intercultural translation is recognized as harmonious if the meanings of the source and translation texts are proportional and balanced, as a result of which the new text naturally fits into target culture and enriches it.

Keywords: Translation spaceharmonyinternal and external translationinternal and external speechcognitionsynergy

Introduction

The modern stage of humanities development is characterized by versatile transdisciplinary interactions. Developing mental models of the text, scientists have revealed the semantic quanta of the text and presented them in the form of an epistemic situation (Kotyurova, 2019; Kotyurova & Kushnina, 2018). The theory of translation is also acquiring transdisciplinary features and incorporating the achievements of linguistics, psychology, culturology, synergy, cognitive science, etc. As a part of our research aimed at studying the mechanisms of translation discourse generation, linguo-cognitive and linguo-synergetic studies gain particular importance. We view them through the prism of the translation space concept developed by one of the article’s authors (Kushnina, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 etc.).

The search for innovative solutions that contribute to the achievement of qualitative translation of the text/discourse has led us to the idea of harmony, which for us is not a scientific metaphor, but a translation category of full value, complementing traditional categories of adequacy and equivalence. For us harmonious is such a text/discourse of translation, the meanings of which are proportional to the meanings of the source text, correlate with it, but at the same time¸ are not the same, are not identical. The harmonious translation is not a constant, the only correct translation. We believe that the number of harmonious translations can be infinite since the principle of harmony assumes that the text of translation fits naturally into the target culture, is perceived by the recipient in the same way as he perceives the text in his native language. In the case of poor-quality translation, we recognize it as disharmonious. This is the way the hierarchical system to estimate the quality of translation is constructed: harmony-equivalence - adequacy-disharmony. The existence of repeated translations indicates that in each era there are its harmonious translations, since the temporal meanings embedded in the text are dynamic and mobile, meanwhile each linguo-culture has its dynamics.

According to another fundamental principle – a synergetic one, harmonious translation implies the increment of new meanings acceptable to the host culture. As Hacken and Hacken-Krell (2002) noted, the synergetic ideology allows explaining the process of new properties emergence in complex systems. We interpret translation as a complex dynamically developing system that generates unique meanings for each culture. This means that the translation of the same text into different languages determines the generation of different harmonious texts: each culture suggests a unique increment of meanings as a result of their synergetic interaction. Synergetic aspects of translation have found a response in the studies of the colleagues (Kushnina, Krivoruchko, & Ushakova, 2016; Plastinina, 2017). The principal significance of synergy in translation space is that relations between the meanings of its fields are not rigid, but probabilistic (Krivoruchko, 2016). This means that in the process of translation activity there are many unpredictable situations that affect the space-time continuum, thus forming a unique "pattern" of heterogeneous meanings, which self-development leads to the generation of a unique text of translation. Each harmonious translation is unique, as unique is the linguistic personality and linguistic consciousness of a translator who is an active subject of communication (Zhang, 2018).

The synergetic aspects of translation are inseparable from the ideas of anthropocentrism and cognition in the modern theory of translation (Anosova, 2019; Leontyeva, 2017; Nefedova & Zagidullina, 2011). We hold with Alekseeva's statement that the anthropological paradigm allows designing models built on the concept of the translating personality: "In this regard, the subject of translation began to be understood as a mechanism of the process in which the translator is not just a participant in interlanguage communication, but a person who determines the entire course of interlanguage communication" (Alekseeva & Shutemova, 2016, p. 32).

Within the framework of this article, the subject of the research is the content of the translator's linguistic consciousness, the "traces" of which we can observe in the product created by him – a text or a discourse of the translation. The centre of our research interest is the interaction of internal speech and internal translation, which are the content of the translator’s linguistic consciousness, and which are the generating mechanism of written and oral translation discourse.

Problem Statement

The impetus to state this problem was the article "Actualization of the foreign cultural substratum: the rationale for the internal translation mechanism" (Yuzefovich, 2014, p. 149-154). The author relies on the study of psycholinguistic mechanisms of speech in monolingual communication, which is represented in the works of outstanding national linguists. According to the results of their research, the process of creating the text can be represented as a sequence of the following thinking operations: "... the intention = "internal utterance" (according to A. Leontyev), internal speech = "universal thematic code" (according to N. Zhinkin), internal verbal speech ("external to oneself" by P. Galperin) and the production of the text: "external speech" (Yuzefovich, 2014, p. 151). The authors hold the opinion that the process of translation text production, is preceded by a transition from internal speech as a mental activity to internal speech as speech to oneself.

The problem of internal speech in monolingual communication was investigated by Murzin and Stern (1991). Analyzing the nature of internal speech, the scientist emphasizes that it is "interiorized", turned inward the personality, i.e. it does not need a language: "however, thinking to ourselves, we argue with an alleged opponent, rejoice at the opportunity to inform somebody about an idea that has emerged. That means in internal speech we use the language in approximately the same way as in external" (Murzin & Stern, 1991, p. 25).

Murzin traces the process of internal speech becoming external speech, which determines the understanding of the statement: "The fact is that we understand the external speech addressed to us only insofar as we manage to find its conformity in our internal speech. It is possible to assert with sufficient certainty that our external speech is filled with concrete content due to the support on internal speech" (Murzin & Stern, 1991, p. 26).

Recognizing the verbal nature of internal speech, Murzin recognizes its specificity in the fact that it is of a predicative nature, that is, the object to which the predicate is attributed, and which is not designated by the subject, is mentally assumed to be. Moreover, in internal speech, predicates do not just follow each other, they are interrelated. At the same time, Murzin and Stern (1991) following Zhinkin admits, that the main feature of the internal speech is its conditionality by universal subject code. And here the scientist comes to the important conclusion for us: "Without reliance on internal speech with its universal subject code, external speech cannot do, not only when translated from one language to another, but also in the conditions of conventional communication, when one and the same language is used" (p. 26).

Developing this idea of L. Murzin, we can assume that without internal translation based on internal speech and its concomitant universal subject code, as well as on intra-lingual and intra-cultural communication, there cannot be both external speech and external – interlanguage and intercultural communication, i.e. interlanguage and intercultural translation.

Research Questions

The functional significance of the translation space becomes obvious when we turn to the theory of the linguistic personality of the translator. It is in the linguistic consciousness of the translating personality where translation space arises and develops, in which dynamics, synergy, and harmony of texts meanings of contacting cultures take place. The linguistic consciousness of the translator is studied by Pshenkina, who treats it as one of the forms of cognitive consciousness. Since language signs have associative and semantic links with other units, making images, values, cultural stereotypes actual, when translated, there remain "traces" of a different consciousness, accidentally or intentionally left by the translator: "... the chosen word "pulls" behind it much more than the load of "uncollected in speech" (Pshenkina, 2005, p. 123). The translator studies and compares mental spaces of representatives of different linguistic cultures and decides either following the principle of domestication, i.e., orientation toward the image of the recipient's world, or foreignization, that is, orientation toward the image of the producer’s world. Although this process is largely cognitive, other mechanisms – emotional, behavioral, regulated by his professional and personal qualities are also included. The main idea of the author is that the world behind the word is a reality transformed by consciousness, which can be considered as a cognitive process: "The translation processing of such complex heterogeneous information, where the word is associated not with a realia, but with its understanding, formed in the act of "people's linguistic creation" is a cognitive process" (Pshenkina, 2005, p. 126).

According to the definition of Gavrilenko (2018), the professional competence of the interpreter is interpreted as readiness and ability to use internal and external resources while translating.

The problem of linguistic consciousness is investigated by Ufimtseva in the collective monograph "Neopsychholingistics and psycholinguoculturology" (Bubnova, Zykova, Krasnykh, & Ufimtseva, 2017). It is external cultural conditioning of linguistic consciousness, discrepancies in the image of the world in the transition from one culture to another that cause insufficient commonality of consciousness, which can serve as a source of communicative conflicts, so far as conflicts of incomplete or even complete misunderstanding. In this regard, not only common knowledge of the language but also common knowledge of the world and the form of consciousness images, i.e. of the linguistic consciousness, are necessary to achieve mutual understanding of different cultures representatives. Ufimtseva comes to the following conclusion: "Culture does not change but transforms, that is, it changes by being embedded with alien elements, cultural stereotypes not characteristic of it. All this leads to an essential change of its entire system" (Bubnova, Zykova, Krasnykh, & Ufimtseva, 2017, p. 76).

As we see, linguistic consciousness is the result of sociocultural reality development, which is proved in the course of associative psycholinguistic experiments (Chahrour, 2018). We conclude that due to the cognitive process of translation, not the realities behind the text of translation are important for its progress, but their understanding and comprehension by the translator, in whose linguistic consciousness there are "traces" of another linguistic consciousness containing other images and notions, cultural values and stereotypes.

Purpose of the Study

In our line of reasoning, we proceed from the idea that the author’s creation of the original text is a movement from internal speech to external speech, while the perception of the text by the translator is a movement from external speech to internal speech. The activity of the translator to create an external text is aimed at producing such a product that can find inner support and understanding of a foreign-language and foreign-cultural recipient. Thus, we approach the rationale of culturally oriented translation concepts, among which we highlight the concept of the translation space, which is the methodological basis of the research.

The main idea of our concept is that the text of the translation should naturally be integrated into the target culture, which is confirmed in the works of foreign researchers (Chahrour, 2018; Delisle, 2014; Ladmiral, 2015; Sipayung, Setia, & Silalahi, 2018; Zhang, 2018). As the contemporary Canadian scientist Delisle writes "La traduction n’est pas seulement ce qui permet le dialogue entre les cultures: elle est ce qui, bien souvent, les façonne" (Delisle, 2014, p. 46) ("Translation not only provides a dialog of cultures, but it very often forms cultures itself") (authors' translation).

We agree with the position of Delisle and recognize as harmonious such text of translation, the meanings of which are proportional to the meanings of the source, but, most importantly, are proportional to the culturally significant meanings and expectations of the recipient, are understood by him, are perceived as naturally as the meanings of the text in the native language.

If we analyze the harmony of translation in terms of the ratio between internal and external translation, it can be said that harmonious translation creates favorable conditions for the external translation to pass freely into internal translation, i.e. to be perceived and understood by a recipient.

Thus, the purpose of our research is formulated: to show that the generation of interlanguage and intercultural translation is the actualization of intra-language translation processes, which is based both on linguistic and cognitive mechanisms.

Research Methods

Let us consider this problem through the prism of the authors' concept of the translation space, which is the methodological basis of the study (Kushnina, 2020). In the translation space, we identify the nexus – the content of the text, the understanding of which is possible as a result of the identification of both a separate sentence and a text as a whole in the form of a topic-rheumatic progression. We correlate the content with explicit meaning because its detection does not cause any particular difficulties. Around the nexus semantic fields are formed: three fields of translation communication participants and two text fields. We recognize the meanings generated in them as implicit since the translator needs to carry out certain intellectual and emotional efforts for their de-verbalization, comprehension, re-verbalization (Lederer's terms).

We have designated fields and corresponding meanings as follows: the author's field, in which a modal meaning is formed; the translator's field, in which an individual figurative meaning is formed; the recipient's field, in which reflective meaning is formed; energy field and emotive meaning, a phatic field and culturological meaning. The integral meaning of translation text is not the sum of meanings identified by the translator, but their synergy, which implies an indispensable increment of new meanings, determined by the norms and traditions of the receiving culture.

Based on this interpretation of translation space, it can be assumed that linguistic mechanisms of internal translation correlate with the multidirectional processes of de-verbalization and re-verbalization. This means that the process of meaning comprehension implies first abandoning language units of the source text, and then converting the comprehended into language units of a translation text. In this regard, our desire to define qualitative translation as harmonious, i.e., in which the meanings of the original and translated texts are commensurate with each other is quite understandable. If the translator focuses on the selection of dictionary matches (which does not require de-verbalization, but only the replacement of one language unit by another, the one indicated in the translation dictionary), we recognize the translation as adequate, that is, we note a low level of translation quality. In case the translator does not only search for dictionary matches but performs certain interlanguage transformations, provided for by a set of traditional translation techniques, there is a partial de-verbalization, and this translation we recognize as equivalent, representing the average quality level. In a harmonious translation, a full-fledged de-verbalization occurs, followed by re-verbalization, which we correlate with the highest quality level of a translated text. On the opposite pole, there is disharmony as a manifestation of translation errors, inconsistencies, inaccuracies, errors. Thus, we build a system of criteria for evaluating the quality of translation. We define a harmonious text of translation as such a dynamic formation in which different meanings create a single semantic whole, balanced, proportional, to the text of the original, consistent with it. We correlate the dynamics of harmony with the agreement of differential meanings generated in each field of translation space. In the case of their inconsistency, the text of translation will not be able to meet the needs of interlanguage and intercultural interaction, and the translation itself will be incoherent. The task of the translator is seen to establish a balance of meanings, to make them harmonious within the framework of translation space.

Findings

As our research has shown, interlanguage and intercultural translation is the result of actualization of internal translation complex mechanism, which includes the interaction of linguistic, psychological, cognitive mechanisms in translator's consciousness. External translation is recognized as harmonious, provided that synergy and harmonization of explicit and implicit meanings are agreed and the text of translation is included into a target culture, which can be expressed schematically ( Figure 01 ):

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Based on this, it can be assumed that the linguistic mechanism of internal translation is a transition from de-verbalization of the text in the source language to the re-verbalization of the text in the translation language. This process is carried out in translator’s mind, based on translation space as a kind of an abstract construct, as an instrument of their translation reflections that determine subsequent translation solutions.

Analyzing this example, which we recognize as harmonious, we will try to reconstruct the empirically unobserved process of internal translation, which combines linguistic, cognitive, psychological mechanisms. The syntagma "as a brother" is translated as "comme un frère son jumeau". First, we notice the functioning of the linguistic mechanism: in the process of re-verbalization, the translator Henri Abril does not use the dictionary match "brother", but chooses the lexeme "twin". Secondly, we can assume that this choice is due to the formation of a twin brother image in translator’s field and not just his/her brother, which can be attributed to the manifestation of a cognitive mechanism. Thirdly, we observe the manifestation of translation empathy, translator's ability to penetrate into the essence of the poetic text, which reveals a psychological mechanism and explains the chosen translation solution.

Conclusion

In the process of mono-language and mono-cultural communication, external speech is based on internal speech, because in both cases our speech is verbal. The difference is that internal speech is predicative. In the process of translation communication, it is also necessary to coordinate external and internal speech, external and internal translation. For this purpose, the translator must create such an external text of the translation, which harmoniously fits into the culture of the recipient, becomes understandable for them, finds a "response" in their internal speech. Internal translation can be represented as a complex mechanism of interaction of several heterogeneous mechanisms. First, it includes a linguistic mechanism, which is characterized by a three-stage process: de-verbalization, comprehension, re-verbalization. Second, it includes cognitive mechanisms, since translation is consciousness-transformed reality, i.e. mediated reality. Third, it includes a psychological mechanism, i.e., a kind of speech-thinking activity – speech-meaning making. The totality of linguistic, cognitive, psychological factors forms a mechanism of internal translation, which is transformed first into interlanguage, and then into intercultural translation.

The study has showed the importance of a transdisciplinary approach to the analysis of the process and the result of translation, which made it possible to lay the basis for translation synergy as a new independent direction within an anthropocentric paradigm of research. In this connection, it seems expedient to recall the statement of Haken, who introduced the term synergy into scientific circulation: "Synergy is the key to understanding the brain" (Haken & Haken-Krell, 2002, p. 252). And if synergy gives us the key to the clue of the human brain, then the moment will come when we will be able to guess the secrets of the translator’s linguistic consciousness.

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