COMUNICATIVE STRATEGIES

COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES DO WORK!

By Sahar Farrahi Avval, S. Taki (Advisor),

Islamic Azad University, Shahreza Branch,

Isfahan, Iran

A study on the usage of communication strategies in translation by Iranian students of translation.

ABSTRACT

Most people learn a foreign language to communicate. Through communication, they send and receive messages and negotiate meaning (Rubin and Thompson, 1994: 30). Translation is considered an act of communication. To translate most effectively, the translator should analyze the messages; to do so, he/she should have some tools at hand; such tools can be the well-known communication strategies (CSs) which prevents a communication from disruption.

And this is what turns communication strategies into a very important issue in translation studies and attracts the attention of many teachers, scholars and foreign language learners. In this paper we will consider the nature, importance, and usage of CSs in translation;, we will also investigate the translational problems Iranian students of translation might encounter during the translation process. This paper will show how they overcome such problems by making use of CSs and compensate for them. Again, this paper aims at confirming the important role of CSs in translation studies and recommending some ways to develop students' strategic competence in translation.

Keywords: communication, translation, communication strategies, translational problems, translation process, strategic competence.

1 - Introduction

To become a translator, Nida (2002: 103) argues, an individual has to acquire

competencies in one or more languages. First, let us have some definitions of

translation and competence separately then some definitions of them together

as translation competence.

One of the earliest definitions of translation is that of

Meetham and Hudson (1969). They define translation as

the process or result of converting information from one

language or language variety into another. The aim is to

produce as accurately as possible all grammatical and

lexical features of the 'source language' original by finding equivalents in the 'target

language'.

At the same time all factual information contained in the original text must be retained

in the translation (Meetham and Hudson, 1969: 242).

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