UTF-8__0415396417Translation

KEY CONCEPTSHalliday’s argument that lexis and grammar have to be viewed and examinedas one entity lies in the way he explains what language is, namely a layeredwhole consisting of semantics and lexicogrammar. He points out that the word‘semantics’ refers to all the meaning systems within a particular language,which are represented by lexicon and grammar. Meaning itself is expressed bywhat he calls ‘wordings’, such as grammatical patterns (e.g. clauses, phrases),function words, and so on. Halliday hence believes that the term ‘lexicogrammar’helps to highlight the fact that both lexicon and grammar are at the samelevel of language, or ‘code’, as he calls it. (BB)FURTHER READING: Halliday (1985/1994); Halliday and Mathiessen (2004);Hatim and Mason (1990, 1997), Mathiessen (1995, 2002); Munday (2001/2008).LIAISON INTERPRETINGThe term ‘liaison interpreting’ foregrounds the prototypical function of interpretersas communication-enabling links between two (or more) interactingparties using different languages. As such it is closely related to ‘bilateralinterpreting’, which denotes that an interpreter works in both directions, thatis, back and forth between a given pair of languages (though this occurs also inconference interpreting, as when UN interpreters in the Chinese booth workinto their A language as well as retour). Liaison interpreting typically impliesdialogic, face-to-face interaction and is therefore often used interchangeablywith dialogue interpreting. While liaison interpreting has been taken to referto business settings (‘business interpreting’) and other authors use it in connectionwith community interpreting, it clearly applies to international as wellas intra-social communication scenarios. (FP)FURTHER READING: Gentile et al. (1996).LITERAL TRANSLATIONThe distinction between literal and free translation can already be found withCicero (106–43 BCE) and St Jerome (ca. 347–420 CE) in the sense-for-senseversus word-for-word debate. Literal translation is in essence concerned withthe level of words, i.e. a word is the unit of translation. A narrow interpretationof literal translation conceives it as the one-by-one rendering of individual STwords into a TL. This, however, usually turns out to be unfeasible, e.g. theGerman sentence Er ging nach Hause cannot be rendered into English usingthe same number of words, instead it requires one less, i.e. He went home. Abroader definition of literal translation describes it as the close adherence tothe surface structures of the ST message both in terms of semantics and syntax.The term ‘literal translation’ is understood by translation scholars in differentways. For instance, it can be conceived as a word-for-word rendering,204