Translation Universals.pdf - ymerleksi - home

Corpora, universals and interference 71
general tendency is fundamental to determining the status of interference in
translation.
The data for showing this must primarily consist of comparable corpora,
that is, matching corpora that have been compiled on the same principles
of translated texts and original texts in the target language. Ideally, the data
should comprise three kinds of (sub)corpora. First, a corpus of translated texts
from one SL to one TL, to find out how frequent the postulated interference
features are; secondly, a similar corpus with translations from different source
languages, to ascertain whether the features in question are equally common,
or more or less common, when translations come from various sources. Finally
and most importantly, a corpus with comparable target language original
texts is required to see whether the particular features are more common, less
common, or equally common in TL original texts – in other words to check
whether the occurrence of the features is exceptional on a large scale.
In this way it is possible to see whether there is anything remarkable in a
potential ‘interference’ feature, that is, whether it occurs more frequently than
could be expected on the basis of normal TL practice alone, or even translated
language more generally. Such a comparison enables us to ascertain that there
is something to explain (i.e. a deviation). At the same time, a more holistic
view is maintained than by starting from ST–TT comparisons, and individual
instances do not usurp an overblown importance. This procedure, then, allows
us to test the assumption that systematic SL bias occurs in translation, which
may then deserve the label interference (or transfer). Basically it allows us to
assume that transfer /interference is likely to occur at the level of the language
system, but it cannot show anything about the text-specific relations obtaining
between particular STs and TTs.
3. Interference or transfer – is there a difference?
As already pointed out above, ‘transfer’ and ‘interference’ are sometimes used
interchangeably, sometimes as polar opposites. Interference in the latter case
is seen as negative transfer, while transfer itself is held to be positive, or at
least neutral. The distinction appears fuzzy, even arbitrary: if we have difficulty
telling the positive from non-transfer, how do we distinguish positive from
negative?
It seems to me that positive and negative transfer, insofar as both can
be identified at various levels of linguistic description, can reasonably be
conceived as points on a cline, one end of which is a gross deviation from