Keywords

1 Introduction

Translation competence, also known as “translation ability,” “translation skills,” “translation expertise,” or “translator’s competence” (Albir 2010, p. 56), has long been a heated topic in translator training, drawing vast attention and discussion. Varied as its definition is, scholars generally agree that translation competence consists of various knowledge and skills of translation. For instance, Kelly (2005) defines translation competence as a “set of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and aptitudes which a translator possesses in order to undertake professional activity in the field” (p. 162). Among all its components, the textual processing competence, despite its crucial role in the process of translation, has not be given due attention. Informed by Text World Theory, this chapter regards text worlds, the mental representations created in a text, as the intermediate in the translation process, and the ability to re-present the text worlds of the source text (ST) in a coherent and justifiable manner in the target text (TT) is considered an essential translation competence, understood as a richer “textual competence” in this study.

2 An Overview of Studies on Translation Competence

Influenced by Chomsky’s distinction between competence and performance, it has long been believed that translation competence is innate to bilinguals. “Natural translation,” as Harris put forward, is “the translating done in everyday circumstances by people who have no special training for it” (Harris and Sherwood 1978, p. 155). Focusing on the development of bilingualism and translation competence, Harris and Sherwood believe that “translation competence unfolds itself parallel to the development of bilingualism, and that the degree of translation competence increases automatically to the extent to which a child’s ability to use the two languages involved develops” (Lörscher 1997, p. 2006).

Toury (1986) agrees that translation competence coexists with bilingualism but disagrees with the assumption that the former is a necessary derivative of the latter. In response to bilingualism, Toury (1995) put forward a new concept “interlingualism,” referring to “the ability to establish similarities and differences across languages” (p. 248, italics in the original). Translators, while possessing these innate predispositions, are believed to undergo “a process of socialization” during which “parts of the normatively motivated feedback they receive are assimilated by them, modifying their basic competence and gradually becoming part of it” (Toury 1995, p. 250). Their translation competence thus has a blended characteristic of both nature and nurture (ibid.).

As the notion of communicative competence advocated by Hymes gained popularity, translation theorists cast their eyes beyond purely linguistic scope and started to include more factors in the discussion of translation competence. Translation competence was then considered to be composed of several sub-components. Neubert (1994, p. 412) proposed a tripartite model of translation competence comprising language competence, subject competence, and transfer competence.Footnote 1 The model was later expanded to include five parameters by adding “textual competence” and “cultural competence” (Neubert 2000, p. 6). Among these sub-competences, transfer competence is thought as skills that “integrate language, text, subject, and culture knowledge,” so it “dominates over” all the others (Neubert 2000, p. 6).

As the development of Neubert’s model demonstrates, “the general trend among theorists has been to expand the multicomponent model so as to bring new skills and proficiencies into the field of translator training” (Pym 2003, p. 481). Among such multicomponent models of translation competence, the PACTE (2000, 2003, 2005) model is considered “the most sophisticated” to date and is thus labelled as a “holistic model” (Lesznyák 2007, p. 183), having a profound impact on later studies.Footnote 2 The PACTE proposed that translation competence is made up of five sub-competences, namely bilingual sub-competence, extra-linguistic sub-competence, knowledge about translation sub-competence, instrumental sub-competence, and strategic sub-competence. In addition, psycho-physiological mechanisms are included as they are believed to be activated during translation (PACTE 2003, p. 58). Of all the sub-competencies, strategic sub-competence controls the translation process and coordinates between different sub-competencies, so it is considered the most essential to translation competence. In this sense, the role of strategic sub-competence is similar to that of transfer competence in Neubert’s model. In fact, in an earlier version of the PACTE model, strategic sub-competence was labelled “transfer competence” (PACTE 2000, p. 101). In the redefined model, the term was renamed in order to expand its connotations.

Against the backdrop of the increasing use of electronic tools, Pym (2003) argued that the multicomponent expansions of competence are “conceptually flawed” as “they will always be one or two steps behind market demands” (p. 481). Thus, he defended a minimalist approach to translation competence which had been proposed earlier in Pym (1991). In contrast to the complexity of the multicomponent model, the minimalist concept of translation competence concentrates primarily on translation per se, emphasizing the production and then elimination of alternatives. Specifically, the twofold translation competence by the minimalist definition includes the “ability to generate a series of more than one viable target text (TT1, TT2 … TTn) for a pertinent source text (ST)” and the “ability to select only one viable TT from the series, quickly and with justified confidence” (Pym 2003, p. 489).

Pym’s view on translation competence is in line with the assertion that translation is a decision-making activity (Levý 1967; Reiß 1981; Wilss 1994; Munday 2012). It is in essence a cognitive process centering on the comprehension and production of texts. Apart from possessing receptive and productive competences in both languages, translators have the ability to “re-map” “linguistic forms, and their semantic potentials on to the specific meanings and communicative intentions” (Shreve 1997, p. 129). Although such an ability is more or less mentioned in previous studies on translation competence, such as the transfer competence in Neubert’s model, the strategic sub-competence and psycho-physiological components in the PACTE model and even in Pym’s minimalist model, scarcely have any studies combined the language factors, or the text, with the cognitive mechanisms of human being to probe into the textual processing competence in translation.

3 Redefining Textual Competence

Commonly viewed as a sub-competence of language competence relating to the knowledge about the organization of a text (Bachman 1990, p. 88), textual competence is traditionally mentioned in discussions of translation competence to refer to the “knowledge of regularities and conventions of texts, genres, text types” (Schäffner 2000, p. 146). Noting that human communication involves the production and reception of texts in situations, Alexieva (1994) explained textual competence as:

knowledge of how to employ the means of expression which language offers for the production and reception of texts that would match the situation and fulfil the communicative goal of the speaker as regards the addressee. In other words, knowledge of textual standards, text types, and procedures of their production and reception seems to form an integral part of our communicative competence.

(Alexieva 1994, p. 179)

In empirical studies, textual competence is usually “measured by grammatical and lexical criteria” (Dong and Lan 2014, p. 49), such as features of nominalization, average word length, lexical diversity, and cohesive devices presented in the TT (Campbell 1998).

However, as translation is commonly believed to be a cognitive activity (Dank et al. 1997; Shreve and Angelone 2010; O’Brien 2011; Schwieter and Ferreira 2017; Li et al. 2019), comprehension of the ST and production of the TT are an integrated cognitive process. Thus, discussions on textual competence should not be limited to the textual-linguistic level. The synthesis of textual considerations and cognitive processing is key to studies on translation competence. In this study, we broaden the concept of textual competence by bringing cognitive factors into its discussion. At the interface of language and cognition, textual competence is endowed with new meaning and redefined as an integrated competence in presenting the mental representations prompted by the ST in a coherent and justifiable manner in the TT.

Illuminated by Text World Theory, Tian and Wang (2019) initiated a text-world approach to translation studies, which provides a cognitive-linguistic model for revealing the mental mechanisms in translation. Text World Theory suggests that texts are comprehended and presented as mental representations known as text worlds. Similar to the physical world we live in, a text world has its world-building elements and function-advancing propositions (Werth 1999; Gavins 2007). In this connection, translation is regarded as “a cognitive communicative process of reproducing texts as worlds in the target language” (Tian and Wang 2019, pp. 15–16). The ability to create a TT which has the potential to project accountable text worlds in the target reader turns to be a crucial factor for competent translators. In other words, textual competence, the core of translation competence, involves the construal of text worlds based on the ST and the selection of expressions from the target language (TL) to verbalize the intended text worlds. As we can see, the “textual competence” advocated in this study is more like an umbrella term covering or overlapping with the “language competence,” “transfer competence,” and “strategic competence” that are put forward by other scholars concerning translation competence.

To probe into textual competence as such, there are basically two ways—product-based study and process-based study. A product-based study investigates translation competence by analyzing the products of translation, i.e., the translated texts, whereas a process-based study pays attention to the performance of the translator during the translation process. While process-based studies have the advantage of directly observing translators’ behaviors (e.g., by using eye tracker and Translog), mental activities (e.g., via Think-aloud Protocol), or even the neuro reactions (e.g., by using ERP) during the process of translation, most of the methods and technologies adopted in these studies usually only function as recording. It still largely relies on the researcher to analyze and explain the cognitive mechanisms behind. Some are also blamed for hampering the process of translation, so they are hardly studies of translation taking place in natural settings. In this study, we will conduct a product-based research. Through in-depth analysis of the translated texts, it aims to investigate textual competence from a cognitive-linguistic perspective.

4 A Case Study

4.1 The Data

In this section, a short English text and its Chinese translations by student translators and an advanced translator are selected as the subjects for case study.

The text is a narrative about the narrator’s visit to a mountain where she was awed by a splendid view of daffodils. Detailed depiction of the scenery and the narrator’s reflections are stated in the text.

The ST is in English and the TTs are in Chinese. By systematic sampling, thirty-four student translated versions are selected from Parallel Corpus of Chinese EFL Learners (PACCEL), and the advanced translator’s version is collected from online resource.Footnote 3 All the student translators and the advanced translator are native speakers of Chinese.

4.2 Text World Construction

The construction of text world is made available by our understanding and conceptualization of the physical world. World-building elements including location, time, enactors, and objects constitute the basics of a text world.

The initial text world of the ST is positioned on a bleak rainy day when the narrator-enactor, upon her daughter’s invitation, paid a visit to the mountain. The temporal location of the text world is signified in the ST by the fixed expression It was a … day. Although the dummy subject it does not suggest conceptual proximity nor distance, the past tense indicates that the text world is situated in the past, marking a certain temporal distance from the origo, i.e., the time when the narrator made the narration. In our data of the Chinese versions, the most popular way to position the text world is to begin the narration with deixis as the following observations illustrate.

(1ST):

It was a bleak, rainy day, and I had no desire to drive up the winding mountain road to my daughter Carolyn’s house.Footnote 4

(1TTa):

这   是   一个   阴冷的   雨天。Footnote 5

Zhe   shi   yi-ge   yinleng de   yu tian.

This   be   one   cloudy cold   rainy day.

(1TTb):

那   是   一个   阴冷的   雨天。

Na   shi   yi-ge   yinleng de   yu tian.

That   be   one   cloudy cold   rainy day.

Among the thirty-four student translated versions, ten adopt the deixis zhe (这, ‘this’) and eighteen employ na (那, ‘that’). Both are deixes in Chinese roughly equivalent to the English deictic pair this and that. While the proximal deixis zhe sets a text world close to the origo, the dismal deixis na positions it with a certain distance away from the origo. As there is no verb inflexion in Chinese to show differences in tense, it seems that instead of being conveyed by the verb shi (是, ‘be’), the temporal parameter of the text world could only be obtained from deixes as the above observations illustrate. Despite their wide adoption in the TTs, deixes are in fact not indispensable in the Chinese translation. For example,

(1TTc):

凄风细雨, 山路蜿蜒, 我毫无兴致驱车前往女儿卡洛琳的家。

Qi feng xi yu, shanlu wanyan, wo hao wu xingzhi qu che qianwang nver Kaluolin de jia.

Chill wind fine rain, mountain road winding, I have not the least interest to drive car to daughter Carolyn’s house.

Observation (1TTc) above is the advanced translator’s version. Instead of specifying the time of the initial text world as the ST and most of the other TTs do, this translation lays stress on the spatial location of the text world, i.e., in the mountain. By moving the depiction of the mountain road to the front of the sentence and expanding it into a clause, it puts the road to the foreground in the text world. The temporal information of the text world, however, is converted to more explicit description of the weather. That is to say, although the content of relevant information is kept in the translation, its role in the text world has been changed from world building specifying the temporal parameter to function advancing describing the weather of the day, which is achieved by the manipulation of the placement of information in the text.

As the discourse continues, new text worlds are built up. The last text world is created when the enactors, i.e., the narrator and her daughter, after appreciating the scenery, drove back home. In this text world, the narrator-enactor reflected on what they had seen in the mountain. This world-switch is indicated by the change of time in narration and is verbally expressed by the adverbial clause As we drove home in the ST. As time change is closely related to the change in location, both of the following cited TTs are justified.

(2ST):

As we drove home, I was so moved by what we had seen that I could scarcely speak.

(2TTa):

开车回家时, 我被看到的景色感动得说不出话来。

Kai che hui jia shi, wo bei kandao de jingse gandong de shuo bu chu hua lai.

When driving home, I was so moved by the scenery seen that (I) could not speak.

(2TTb):

在我们开车回家的路上, 我被所看到的情景感动得一句话都说不出来。

Zai women kai che hui jia de lu shang, wo bei suo kandao de qingjing gandong de yi-ju hua dou shuo bu chu lai.

On the way we drove home, I was so moved by the scene that (I) could not speak even a single sentence.

While Observation (2TTa), like the ST, provides information of the temporal domain of the text world, Observation (2TTb) specifies the setting of the text world in terms of location. In our data, twenty-six TTs, like Observation (2TTa), present the information as temporal; six TTs, like Observation (2TTb), transfer the original temporal information into spatial and bring about the switch of world by the change of location. This example shows that the same world-switch can be enabled either by the change of time or by the change of location without causing much confusion. However, there lies some ambiguity in both Observations (2TTa) and (2TTb) as far as the object of the text world is concerned. Were it not for the co-text, the scenery mentioned in Observation (2TTa) or scene in Observation (2TTb) might be mistaken as something spotted on the way home. This is mainly caused by the unclear distinction of the time difference in both versions. In comparison, the switch of tense in the ST from the past tense (was … moved) to the past perfect (had seen) makes it clear that the object refers to something stated before. Although Chinese is lack of variations in tense, there are always other means to indicate the difference in time. Observation (2TTc) below is a case in point.

(2TTc):

我们回去的路上, 我因刚才所见震惊地说不出话来了。

Women huiqu de lu shang, wo yin gangcai suojian zhenjing de shuo bu chu hua lai le.

On our way back, I was shocked by what was just seen so (I) could not speak.

In Observation (2TTc), the adverb gangcai (刚才, ‘just now’) helps specify the object as what was seen in the immediate past rather than something present in the text world under construction.

As far as the manner of motion is concerned, relevant information is encoded in the verb drove in the English ST, which is a typical feature of satellite-framed languages. In both Observations (2TTa) and (2TTb), however, the manner of going home is stated in the co-verb, or serial-verb kai che hui jia (开车回家, ‘drive car go home’). Retaining the information conveyed in the ST, they run the risk of unduly distracting the reader’s attention from the intended focus of the text world. Observation (2TTc), in contrast, omits the manner of motion, thus making location the background in the text world.

Presentation of enactors in the text world also reveals textual competence of the translator. In the ST, two enactors—the narrator and her daughter, verbally addressed as we, are present in the text world, though the narrator’s daughter seldom actively propels the advancement of the text world. More like a bystander, she is put in the background. Therefore, it makes the omission of the rendition of we in Observation (2TTa) and the avoidance of its repetition in Observations (2TTb) and (2TTc) accountable. The repetition of we in the ST—As we drove home, I was so moved by what we had seen—might be explained by the grammar-controlled feature of English, which requests indispensable subjects for clauses. In comparison, the subject of a Chinese clause is usually omitted if the context is clear enough. In this regard, redundant subjects such as the repetition of the personal pronoun wo (我, ‘I’) in Observation (2TTd) will make the enactor unjustifiably foregrounded.

(2TTd):

当我开着车回家时, 我被我所看到的美景感动得说不出话来。

Dang wo kai-zhe che hui jia shi, wo bei wo suo kandao de mei jing gandong de shuo bu chu hua lai.

When I drove home, I was so moved by the beautiful scenery I saw that (I) could not speak.

As we have discussed above, the narrator’s daughter, as an inactive enactor, may appear either in the foreground or background in the text world depending on how the enactor is textually presented. Retaining wo as the subject of the main clause and omitting all the others, Observation (2TTa), for example, makes the presence of the narrator’s daughter invisible in the text world. By adopting the unanimous wo as the subjects of all the clauses and repeating it three times, Observation (2TTd), on the one hand, has similar effect in making the presence of the other enactor invisible; on the other hand, it puts the narrator-enactor in a rather foregrounded position, which may not be the intention of the author nor the translator.

4.3 Text World Connection

Text world connection ensures the coherence of a text. Different from cohesion which is concerned with the textual connections on the surface structure of a text, coherence cares for the underlying mental connections between text worlds, so it is crucial to textual competence. Reference maintenance is one of the means to realize such connection.

Immediately after the narrator’s negative desire world disclosing her reluctance to drive up the mountain road to her daughter’s house, there follows the daughter’s desire world insisting that I come and see something at the top of the mountain. On the one hand, the two contrastive desire worlds contribute to the coherence of the text; on the other hand, the suspense as which desire world will come true arouses the reader’s interest to find the outcome from the upcoming text worlds.

(3ST):

But she had insisted that I come and see something at the top of the mountain.

(3TTa):

但她坚持让我来看看山顶上的某样东西。

Dan ta jianchi rang wo lai kankan shanding shang de mou yang dongxi.

But she insist that I come to see on the mountaintop a certain thing.

(3TTb):

不过她坚持让我去看山顶上的什么东西。

Buguo ta jianchi rang wo qu kan shanding shang de shenme dongxi.

But she insist that I go to see on the mountaintop something.

(3TTc):

可女儿一定要我前去看看山顶上的什么景致。

Ke nver yiding yao wo qianqu kankan shanding shang de shenme jingzhi.

But daughter firmly ask me to go to see on the mountaintop some scenery.

Marked by the deixis come, the ST shifts the point of view to that of the daughter and directs the reader’s attention to the mountain. In the translated versions, Observation (3TTa) follows the same point of view as that of the ST, whereas the others present the world from the viewpoint of the narrator. Among the thirty-four student translated versions, eleven TTs, like Observation (3TTa), employ the deictic verb lai (来, ‘come’) to act in accordance with its counterpart come in the ST. Nineteen TTs, however, like Observation (3TTb), adopt its antonym qu (去, ‘go’) in the re-presentation of the desire world, taking the location of the narrator as the vantage point. This means that in presenting the desire world under discussion, more than half of the TTs alter the point of view from the daughter to the narrator. While the former naturally leads the reader to project themselves onto the text world situated in the mountain, thus contributing to a more coherent text-world series, the latter, by unifying the viewpoint of the reader with that of the narrator, creates a closer relationship between the two.

Another point worth noting is that the object in the desire world is simply mentioned as something in the ST. By refraining from disclosing what it really is, it arouses the reader’s interest to read on and look for more details. Similar to the ST, Observation (3TTb) introduces the object without revealing any properties of it. Nevertheless, not all the TTs have such a suspense well maintained. Some of the cited translations, for example, disclose the properties of the object in one way or another. Specifically, Observation (3TTa) indicates the amount of the object as one. Observation (3TTc), the advanced translator’s version, reveals that it is some scenery that the narrator is asked to see on the mountaintop. Although the connections between text worlds are somewhat strengthened in this way, it unfortunately weakens the suspense and mystery created in the ST.

Seeing the splendid view of daffodils on the mountain, the narrator was so astonished that she could not help asking:

(4ST):

Who created such beauty? Why? How?

(4TTa):

到底谁创造了如此美丽的景色?她为什么会这么做呢?她又是怎样做到的呢?

Daodi shui chuangzao-le ruci meili de jingse? Ta weishenme hui zheme zuo ne? Ta you shi zenyang zuo dao de ne?

Who on earth created such beautiful scenery? Why did she do so? And how did she make it?

(4TTb):

是谁创造了如此的美景呢?他为什么要创造呢?又是怎样创造出来的呢?

Shi shui chuangzao-le ruci de mei jing ne? Ta weishenme yao chuangzao ne? You shi zenyang chuangzao chulai de ne?

Who created such beautiful scenery? Why did he create? And how created?

(4TTc):

谁创造了这种美景?为什么要创造?又是如何创造的?

Shui chuangzao-le zhezhong mei jing? Weishenme yao chuangzao? You shi ruhe chuangzao de?

Who created such beautiful scenery? Why create? And how create?

In this pending world of the ST, no detailed information about the creator is revealed such as the number and gender. Both Observation (4TTa) and Observation (4TTb), however, via the third person singular pronoun, indicate that such a feat was accomplished by one person. Observation (4TTa), by using the third person female pronoun ta (她, ‘she’), reveals the gender of the creator as a female. In so doing, the surprise that the whole thing was actually done by a single woman would be weakened. Observation (4TTb) avoids revealing such information by adopting the third person male pronoun ta (他, ‘he’), which could function as an unmarked expression for the third person singular in Chinese and refer to both men and women in general when the gender is not clear or unnecessary to identify. Nevertheless, confusion or misunderstanding may still be brought about because of its specific usage as reference to male. In order to keep the information about the creator undisclosed especially in terms of the gender and number, omission of the subjects of questions as shown by Observation (4TTc), i.e., the advanced translator’s version, turns out to be an effective way in re-presenting the pending world in the Chinese translation.

4.4 Discussion

Preliminary as it is, our analyses above show the feasibility of a cognitive-linguistic approach to textual competence in translation. From a text-world perspective, it is found that those world-building elements that are explicitly introduced in the ST, such as the spatial and temporal information, are in most of the cases re-presented in one way or another in the TTs without significant differences from those in the ST. In other words, text worlds marked by specific time and place are usually retained and expressed in similar ways in translations from English to Chinese. However, due to the lack of verb inflexion in Chinese, those text worlds signified by tense variation in the English ST are not always reflected in the Chinese TTs. Some more sensitive translators are apparently aware of such nuance by adopting complementary measures such as additional adverbial modifiers to provide relevant information of the time difference.

As far as text world connection is concerned, it is found that on the one hand failure in maintaining reference to certain entities across text worlds leads to lack of coherence between text worlds in some students’ translations; on the other hand, over-interpretation of entities upon their first introduction to the discourse reflects some student translators’ insufficient understanding of textual coherence.

In comparison with flexible arrangement of text world construction and proper handling of reference maintenance, the advanced translator’s version excels in ensuring the establishment of a series of coherent text worlds. Keeping pace with the text world development of the ST, it well retains the suspense in the narration and has the potential to achieve the intended textual effects of the ST. Instead of providing a model translation, the inclusion of an advanced translator’s translation in this case study aims to demonstrate the availability of the target language in presenting the intended text worlds as long as the translator has sufficient textual competence to mobilize the linguistic resources of the target language.

5 Conclusion

Taking a world-view on texts, translation studies extend its concern to the cognitive mechanisms of text processing in terms of text world construction and connection rather than mere observations of word use or sentence patterns. Analysis of translation through the conceptualization of texts as worlds conforms to the cognitive mechanisms of human beings in text comprehension, processing, and production. In this connection, it is crucial to examine translation competence from a cognitive-linguistic perspective. Taken as the core of translation competence, textual competence in this study is redefined as an integrated competence in presenting the mental representations prompted by the ST in a coherent and justifiable manner in the TT.

To empirically substantiate the proposed notion, a case study of the translations of a narrative text from English to Chinese is conducted. By comparative analysis, it is found that competent translators are sensitive to the influence of language use on text-world construction and could make proper use of the target language in order to re-present the intended text world in the TT. Although the mechanisms of mental representations seem an innate cognitive ability of human beings, translators need to be aware of such mechanisms, sensitive to the effects of language manipulation on the projected text worlds, and responsible for legitimate re-presentation of the text worlds of the ST in the TT.

Our case study illustrates that a world-view on textual competence also shows pedagogical implications on translator training. By helping them understand text world construction, presentation and connection during the translation process, translation learners can be made competent translators with adequate textual competence to make responsible selection of expressions from the target language to verbalize the intended text worlds in a coherent and justifiable manner.