MA Translation Studies

Some tips for

Writing Commentaries

What is a commentary for?

Things to include
Structure
Theory and research

Commentaries

Some reasons
Makes the purpose of your translation clear
Makes research for translation more visible
Connects theory and practice; translation as a
form of critical practice (kydd 2012)
A reflective commentary on your practice, makes
you think about what youre doing and why
Reflection part of learning process (Kiraly, 2000, p. 32)

Explain your problem solving process (Shei 2005)

Helps evaluate your translation process and skills
developed (Garcia Alvarez 2007)

Commentaries

Things to include
Shei (2005), Garcia Alvarez (2007),
Munday (2012, pp. 295-310) and
Perez-Gonzalez (2014, pp. 284-304)
all propose different schema for
writing commentaries
The general concepts are the same as
the ones presented here, though
sometimes the details may differ a
little.
Commentaries

Things to include: Planning

The translation brief
(Imaginary) Short instructions for your
translation
Gives the purpose and audience of your
translation
Who are you translating for? How does
that affect your decisions?

Its really important to make the purpose

and audience of your translation clear
Commentaries

Audience
To reiterate: make your audience clear
How specialised is the text that
youre looking at?
What sort of knowledge can they be
expected to have?
Lexical, technical, cultural

Will the audience affect the

presentation of the text?
Layout, use of illustrations, etc.
Commentaries

Genre and text-type

Genre
What is the genre? What are the general
features of the genre?
What problems does this genre pose for
translation?
Certain features may be difficult to translate
consistently
Genre conventions may be different across
languages

Text-type: what is the function of this

text?
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Text-level
Consistent difficulties
E.g. Use of dialect, complex structures, spoken
language, formality, etc
Think about structure of the text
What about cultural issues, such as Culture
Specific Items (CSIs)?
What about ideology?
What about layout/presentation?

Your general solutions

What have you done in general to overcome
these recurrent problems?

Dont forget to use examples!

Commentaries

Smaller sections
Paragraphing
Do you need to alter it?
Do languages present information in the
same way?

Sentences
Often need altering to fit TL norms
(length, structure, etc).
What have you done and why?
Commentaries

Smaller sections (2)

Words and expressions
Are there specific words or expressions that
posed problems? Why?
Its not really worth commenting that you
had to look a word up in the dictionary (all
translators do that). Much more interesting is
when there are multiple, plausible meanings
for a word and you had to choose one. Or
you had to change a word to recreate what
you interpret as the intention of the text. Or
when an untranslatable word was present in
the ST. All of these mean that you have to
make choices in your translation.
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Other issues
Basically, any time you have
1. Added
2. Removed or
3. Significantly changed anything

needs to be commented on
What is the issue/problem? Why does it
pose a problem for translating?
How have you solved it?
Were there other plausible solutions?
Give examples
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Anything else you can think

of
The emphasis is on you to choose
what you write about
There are so many things that are
changed in someway when
translating that I cant list all of them
You only have a limited amount of
space, so you have to select the most
important elements to comment on
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Things you dont need to

include

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Structure
There is no fixed form for a commentary
BUT you want a logical development
Suggested structure
Intro
Text and genre
Brief and audience
Macro level
Micro level (specific issues)
Conclusion
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Thinking in terms of answering

a question
If you want to structure your
commentaries around questions, then
one question you are trying to answer
is:
How does this text pose problems for
translation? How can they be
overcome?
NB This is only one possible question
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The role of theory

You need to include reference to translation
theory in your commentaries
Weve covered all sorts of approaches to
translation in Theory and Practice of
Translation as well as mentioning them
elsewhere:
You can use them to describe your techniques
for solving problems

You can refer to theories of purpose, texttype and norms as they apply to most texts
There may be translation theory specific to
the genre (or texts) that youre translating
you should show awareness of it
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The role of research

You should also refer to research done for
the translation
This might take the form of looking for
evidence of how an expression has been
translated before
Or parallel texts to find TL norms for that
genre
Or finding background information

Relate your research to actual problems

you encountered
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Example
Downing Street
Metonymy for the British government

How is it translated?
Downing Street, the British Government, the
Prime Minister

Research:
In parallel texts (newspapers, web) written
about British politics in the TL
Did these examples affect your choice of
solution? Did you choose the most common
solution? Or did you choose another solution
as it fitted the context?
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More on research
Your reference list may be split into:
References
Texts you have referred to in the
commentary

Translation Resources
Other texts that you have used for research
Including parallel texts, dictionaries, forums, etc.
Also corpora (specialised and general), relevant
style guides, etc.

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All this in 1000 words?

You need to write concisely
Get to the point!

Be selective you cannot refer to

every example of change
Pick the most important ones
Refer once to repeated challenges
(making clear that they repeat and giving
an example)

Remember to edit your drafts

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In Summary
Commentaries should include

(Brief) Introduction
Genre and text
Purpose and readership
Generic challenges
Macro-level issues
Some micro-level issues
Conclusion

Remember to include references to theory and

your research
The commentary is there for you to show that
youve understood why youve translated the way
you have
A commentary should be written like an essay,
rather than as a list
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References

Garca lvarez, A.M. (2007). Evaluating Students

Translation Process in Specialised Translation:
Translation Commentary. Journal of Specialised
Translation 7. Retrieved from:
http://www.jostrans.org/issue07/art_alvarez.php
Kiraly, D. (2000). A Social Constructivist Approach
to Translator Education. Manchester: St Jerome.
Kydd, E. (2012). The Critical Practice of Film.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Munday, J. (2012). Introducing Translation Studies
(3rd edition). London/New York: Routledge.
Prez-Gonzlez, L. (2014). Audiovisual
Translation. Abingdon: Routledge.
Shei, C.C.-C. (2005). Translation commentary: A
happy medium between translation curriculum
and EAP. System 33, 309-325.
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Further references for reflective writing on

translation

The following offer either commentaries on specific translations or discussion of

writing about translation:
Booth, M. (2008). Translator vs author (2007). Translation Studies 1 (2), 197-211.
DOI: 10.1080/14781700802113523
Buzelin, H. (2007). Translation Studies, Ethnography and the Production of
Knowledge. In P. St.-Pierre and P. C. Kar (eds), In Translation: Reflections,
Refractions, Transformations (pp. 39-56). Amsterdam: Benjamins
Evans, J. (2014). Translation as a Critical Practice: Using Retranslation when
Teaching Translation. Quaderns: Revista de traducci 21, 199-209. Retrieved from:
http://ddd.uab.cat/record/118847?ln=en
Johnston, D. (2013). Professing Translation: The acts-in-between. Target 25 (3),
365-384. DOI: 10.1075/target.25.3.04joh
Marinetti, C. and Rose, M. (2013). Process, practice and landscapes of reception:
An ethnographic study of theatre translation. Translation Studies 6 (2), 166-182.
DOI: 10.1080/14781700.2013.777258
Prez-Gonzlez, L. (2014). Audiovisual Translation. Abingdon: Routledge. Chapter
8, Lead the Way, pp. 284-304
Scott, C. (2000). Translating Baudelaire. Exeter: Exeter University Press.
Scott, C. (2006). Translating Rimbauds Illuminations. Exeter: Exeter University
Press
Tawada, Y. (2013). Portrait of a Tongue (trans. C. Wright). Ottawa: University of
Ottawa Press
Venuti, L. (1995). The Translators Invisibility: A history of translation. London:
Routledge. Chapter 6 Simpatico, pp. 273-306
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