The Initial Stage of Developing Translation Competence

Abstract

The article outlines the basic principles of teaching translation in the professional field of communication. The main focus is on the formation of basic skills in translation, allowing students to competently carry out the main stages of work on the text. Various methods of teaching professional translation techniques are analyzed. Particular attention is paid to working with dictionaries and reference books.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

The fundamental changes in the nature of higher education in Uzbekistan, which have emerged recently, are increasingly orienting it towards the free development of the individual, towards creative initiative, independence, professional flexibility and mobility of the future specialist. In this regard, it can be concluded that traditional education in the form of the sum of knowledge, skills and abilities has practically exhausted itself. This model of education should be revised from the perspective of a competence-based approach, which is a reflection of society's need for training specialists who not only have a certain set of knowledge, but also know how to competently apply this knowledge in practice. In other words, the introduction of a competence-based approach to education contributes to an increase in the quality of training of professional specialists, which is ensured through the multilevel and multi-vector nature of knowledge and skills.

II. MAIN PART

The essence of the competence-based approach is not in itself the accumulation of knowledge, abilities, skills, but in the development of students' ability to effectively use them in their future professional activities. The level of competence will always depend on the readiness of a specialist to constantly update and improve his knowledge in accordance with the requirements of the time. Methodological basis of the tutorial. In the context of the expansion of international relations, the receipt of a huge amount of information in a foreign language, including from the worldwide computer network, there is a serious need for a high level of language competence of a university graduate, which implies professional growth based on both domestic and foreign achievements, exchange of experience with foreign colleagues, joint research, etc. Because of this, the ability to understand and highlight professionally significant information necessary to improve professional competence and prepare articles, abstracts, reports, etc., is of particular importance. In this regard, the importance of translation skills and abilities increases, which become one of the main conditions for successful professional activity.

Within the framework of the reformed education system in many universities, it became possible to obtain an additional qualification “translator in the field of professional communication”. This specialization differs from the training of translators of a wide profile, since this activity is limited to communication in the field of one or several related professions. Translation, in this case, is considered as a means of providing an opportunity for communication between people speaking different languages.

Speaking specifically about the didactic system of forming the professional competence of a translator, it is aimed at developing a complex of professionally significant competencies among students, which are determined by the needs of the profession and the possibility of further professional self-development.

Among the translation competencies, the development of which is aimed at the course “Translation in the professional sphere of activity”, the Federal State Standard of Higher Professional Education states that the student must have the skills of socio-cultural and intercultural communication that ensure the adequacy of social and professional contacts. In addition, the future specialist must have professional competencies, which include the use of business communication methods in an international environment, necessary for conducting intercultural dialogue in general and professional spheres, as well as mastery of the method of preparing for translation, the ability to work with media materials.

The works of many theorists of translation studies, including I.S. Alekseeva, L.S. Barkhudarov, N.K. Garbovsky, L.K. Latyshev, R.K. Minyar Beloruchev, A.D. Schweitzer et al. Specialists distinguish various components of translation competence, however, the merit of creating an integral concept of translation competence belongs to V.N. Komissarov. According to his theory, the main task of the translation course is to train highly qualified specialists capable of performing translations at a professional level. “In the process of creating professional translation competence, a peculiar linguistic personality is formed, which has a number of differences from a“ normal ”, non-translation personality. These differences are revealed in all the main aspects of speech communication: linguistic, text-forming, communicative, personal and professional technical ”. [4, p. 326-328]

The formation of translation competence is a long-term and multi-stage process, involving the accumulation and assimilation of a huge amount of material, its processing and storage in the depths of memory for the purpose of timely activation to solve the assigned translation tasks. Translation is an independent type of speech activity, but it is possible only on the basis of competent possession of the skills and abilities of reading, writing, listening and speaking. It is impossible to master translation without mastering other types of speech activity; at the same time, in the process of mastering translation and practical training in it, the quality of mastery of all other types of speech activity improves, i.e. the quality of foreign language proficiency in general. Therefore, it is very important to teach students to be creative in their work. above the text, remembering that translation is, in most cases, always creativity, and not the automatic transmission of individual words or phrases.

Thanks to the efforts of translation scientists, linguists, psycholinguists, specialists in the field of translation, modern science of translation has a wide range of knowledge, methods and translation strategies. Nevertheless, there is no rigid or universal methodological line that can be used in the process of teaching translation, but there is only a number of methodological techniques and exercises that form a certain system that can be modified, reduced or supplemented depending on specific conditions. It is for this reason that there remains a need for the constant development of translation science, as well as optimization of the process of teaching translation. This is due to both the requirements for universities within the framework of the competence-based approach, and the realities of modern life, when employers are interested in high-class translators who are able to carry out professionally competent translation of information in large volumes as soon as possible.

The main objectives of the manual:

1. To acquaint with the basics of the theory and practice of translation;
2. To develop basic translation skills and skills of translation and sight translation;
3. Demonstrate pre-translation analysis of texts and teach how to carry it out;
4. To enrich the vocabulary of students on the topics studied.

These tasks determine the structure of the manual, which consists of four lessons containing analysis and translation analysis of media news and journalistic texts of the most relevant topics for translation: visits, official meetings, negotiations, international cooperation, military conflicts, war and peace. The manual also contains translation comments, a set of exercises to consolidate and activate lexical and grammatical material and a corpus of authentic texts intended for the practice of translation.

An introductory lesson on translation is almost entirely devoted to the theory of translation, explaining to students the basic principles and concepts related to the translation process. First of all, students are faced with the ambiguity of the word "translation" itself: on the one hand, this is a special type of intellectual activity, a process, on the other hand, it is the result of a process, a speech work created by a translator.

Thanks to the contributions of eminent linguistic scholars, in the course of its formation the science of translation has developed many definitions of translation. For example, the translation is considered “as a speech work in its relation to the original and in connection with the peculiarities of the two languages ??and the belonging of the material to one or another genre category” (Fedorov A.V.); as a way “to convey the content of the original by means of another language in a holistic and precise manner, while preserving its stylistic and expressive features” (Retsker Ya.I.); as "a certain type of transformation, namely interlingual transformation" (Barkhudarov LS); as "a special, unique and independent type of verbal art" (V. Vinogradov).

Comparing different interpretations of the concept of "translation", students in most cases give preference to the definition of I.S. Alekseeva, in which the author was able to fully reveal the features of this concept: one language, into a text in another language, carried out by a translator who creatively chooses an option depending on the variable resources of the language, the type of translation, translation tasks, the type of text and under the influence of his own individuality; translation is also the result of the activities described above. ” [1, p. 7]

After discussing various interpretations of the concept of "translation", students are offered a short story about the origin of translation, about the development of translation activities in the world and in Russia, in particular, about the formation of the science of translation, about various classifications and types of translation, etc. Along the way, concepts such as the problem of translatability and translation equivalence, translation unit, translation strategies and techniques are introduced. Separately, it is said about the dictionary as an irreplaceable source of information of a reference nature, the role and significance of which in the work of a translator can hardly be overestimated. At the same time, the issue of the variety of dictionaries that the translator uses in his work is considered in sufficient detail: encyclopedic and linguistic, which, in turn, are subdivided into monolingual, bilingual and multilingual. In addition, monolingual linguistic dictionaries for special purposes are mentioned: explanatory, etymological, dictionaries of foreign words, collocations, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, as well as phraseological dictionaries, spelling dictionaries, dictionaries of neologisms, slang dictionaries, abbreviation dictionaries, etc.

Students are explained that the dictionary is not always able to offer the translator the only word that is required by the context. As a rule, the semantic structure of a word, i.e. the full scope of its meanings does not exhaust all the semantic possibilities inherent in the word. Sometimes some meanings and shades of meaning are only realized in a specific context. Thus, the peculiarities of the context can force the translator to abandon dictionary matches and independently search and find the contextual meanings of words, which is the most creative technique in the translation process.

At the end of a short theoretical introduction, students are encouraged to move on to practical activities. Any translation begins with a thorough pre-translation analysis of the source text, aimed at understanding and interpreting it, with extracting information from the original text, which makes it possible to reveal its meaning, identify the main translation difficulties and determine ways to overcome them. The understanding of a text by a translator is fundamentally different from a more superficial understanding of it by an ordinary reader due to the specifics of translation activity. The translator not only delves into the meaning of the text, but also evaluates it in a special way, in translation, i.e. tries to convey not only what is said, but also how it is said, taking into account all the nuances of both the source language and the language of the translator. This is possible only under the conditions of a painstaking analytical stage of the translation process. Aimed at understanding what is said and how it is said, pre-translation analysis of the text implies multiple reading of the text, covering such types of reading as introductory, search and analytical. At the same time, understanding in the process of reading is built taking into account the situational and cultural conditionality of the text, starting from understanding the general content and the main idea of ??the statement based on reading the entire text as a whole to a complete and deep understanding of individual elements and fragments of the text in the process of subsequent analysis of specific components during the search and analytical reading.

As an illustrative example, the Translation Practice section provides a sample translation of one of the texts presented at the very beginning of the lesson, an analysis of the main translation difficulties, as well as specific recommendations for selecting adequate translation options. This practice lays the foundation for students to carry out pre-translation analysis, allows them to learn to see key problems and develop a specific algorithm of actions aimed at solving translation problems, which in the future can be brought to automatism. The Translation Notes section contains a short translation commentary on various difficulties encountered in the analyzed educational text. The purpose of this section is to provide certain grammatical and lexical grounds for choosing a specific translation option within the Russian or English language system. The Exercises section offers a number of pre-text exercises aimed at consolidating the lexical and grammatical material of the lesson in accordance with the translation difficulties indicated in the comments to the text, as well as designed to practice translation skills. In a separate exercise, it is necessary to fill in the table by countries, capitals and derived adjectives, respectively, due to the need to form the background knowledge of students on the geography of regions, which are directly or indirectly referred to in the texts of this lesson. A separate set of lexical exercises is aimed at expanding the active and passive thematic vocabulary of students, and, in addition, is designed to familiarize students with the compatibility of language units. A number of tasks contribute to the formation and development of basic skills and abilities of written translation from English into Russian and from Russian into English. In most cases, the translation of texts is carried out outside the classroom independently, with the involvement of recommended dictionaries, reference books and manuals, and in the classroom the translation is analyzed and their versions are discussed. The Self-Study Exercises section includes translation practice exercises that can be used by teachers in the classroom as a language warm-up. Here you can find exercises and texts that allow students to work out and consolidate the lexical and grammatical material of the lesson, not only in the classroom, but also independently. Texts can also be used to consolidate the skills of written translation.

Conclusion

Today, socio-political translation is most in demand in the context of constantly expanding international contacts and the integration of various countries into a single world political, economic and public space. This circumstance gives particular relevance to the idea of creating a textbook \"Introduction to the theory and practice of social and political translation.\" It focuses on the formation of students\' translation competence when working with texts of a social and political orientation, in particular, the development of skills and abilities necessary for professional text processing. The manual found a positive response among teachers and students, noting its very high efficiency, since it contributes to the development of a number of basic competencies in future translators, which form the basis of professional translation practice.

References

[1] Alekseeva I.S. Vvedenie v perevodovedenie. (Introduction to translation studies). St-P., 2004, 352 p. [2] Barkhudarov L.S. Yazyk I perevod (Voprosy obshchej i chastnoj teori I perevoda). M., «Mezhdunar. ?tnosheniya, 1975, 240 p. [3] Vinogradov V.S. Vvedenie v perevodovedenie (obshchie i leksicheskie voprosy). (Introduction to translation studies). M., 2001,224 ?. [4] Komissarov V.N. Sovremennoe perevodovedenie (Modern translation studies). Uchebnoe posobie. M., 2002, 424 p. [5] Latyshev L.K., Semenov A.L. Perevod//Teoriya, praktika i metodika prepodavaniya. (Translation: theory, practice and teaching methods). M., Academy, 2003, 192 p. [6] Retzker Y.I. Teoriya perevoda i perevodcheskaya praktika: ocherki lingvisticheskoj teorii perevoda. (Translation theory and translation prac- tice: essays on linguistic translation theory). R. Valent, 2004, 237 p. [7] Fedorov A.V. Osnovy obshchej teorii perevoda. (The Origins of Linguistic Translation Theory). M., 2002, 348 p.

Copyright

Copyright © 2022 Absamadova Munira Isroilovna. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.