Peter Newmark

Peter Newmark (born April 12, 1916 in Brno , Moravia; † July 12, 2011 ) was a British translation scholar and linguist . Most recently, he taught as professor of translatology at the University of Surrey and achieved great importance in both the English and Spanish-speaking world.

Life

Peter Newmark was born in Moravia as the son of a British textile entrepreneur. He was a student at Rugby School and studied at the University of Cambridge . There was Anthony Blunt his French teacher. During the Second World War he served in the secret service and was sent to Bolzano as an interpreter. But instead of interpreting the surrender, he discussed poets of German Romanticism with German officers in the villa. The surrender was duly signed the next morning. After the war he worked as a teacher, which eventually led to his appointment as head of the modern language department of the Holborn College of Law, Languages ​​and Commerce. The college eventually merged with the Polytechnic of Central London , which Newmark left in 1981 as dean of the language department. Until his death he worked as a visiting professor at the University of Surrey and was also repeatedly active as a professor abroad (including Spain, Canada). He was a friend of classical music, theater, and all kinds of literature and poetry. As a supporter of Amnesty International, he also campaigned for the cause of Palestine.

Create

Peter Newmark was a key figure in establishing the field of translation studies in the English-speaking world in the 1980s. The translation theory he developed caused a stir, as he described, among other things, the translation of a text from one language to another both as science and as art. For Newmark, this arose primarily from the idea that translating means a search for moral and factual truth and that it is a fundamental artistic process that demands feeling, wit and elegance from the translator. The truth of a text can only be effectively reproduced if the reader understands it and, according to Newmark, that is the purpose and aim of the translation. This makes the translator an "agent" with a moral obligation, which is why Newmark emphasized that the role of translation is a political weapon that can and should be used to defend human rights and promote understanding and peace.

He was a scientist who, in the British tradition, used clear language to formulate his views. His subjects included comparative linguistics , semantics and sociolinguistics . Newmark made these topics easy to understand through the use of practical examples. Accordingly, he defined his translation theory as an application-oriented description of practical problems. Its translation rules are prescriptive and not descriptive. As a result, it may seem contradictory that your opinion cannot be taught what makes a good translator. But he was a proponent of the learning-by-doing method and as a result he was convinced that tips, practice, practical experience and learning from examples ultimately make a good translator. Along with this, he took the view that there are as many types of translation as there are texts and that there can be no general theory of translation because translation is so complex and diverse that it is extremely unsuitable for a holistic theory or dogma .

Its basic principles for translation are rather general:

"A. The more important the language of a text, the more closely it should be translated, and its cultural component transferred. B. The less important the language of a text, or of any of its segments, the less closely they need to be translated, and the less its cultural components need to be reproduced; [...] C. The better written the language of a text, or of any of its segments, whatever their degree of importance, the more closely it too should be translated, provided there is identity of purpose between author and translator as well as a similar type of readership, even if it could just as well be paraphrased. "

- Peter Newmark

By “important language” that should be retained during translation, Newmark understands grammatical and syntactic anomalies, accentuation, stylistic peculiarities and technical terminology. In this respect, he primarily looked at the semantic translation of words and, according to him, an adequate translation should be as (literal) precise and economical as possible, namely in denotative, connotative, referential and pragmatic respects. Building on these principles, he developed linguistic translation procedures , so-called translation procedures , in the context of language- pair-related translation studies :

• transference - the transference of a Source Language (SL) word to a Target Language (TL) context (le baccalauréat - the 'baccalauréat')
• cultural equivalent - the substitution of a TL term for an SL term (le baccalauréat - A level)
• through translation - the literal translation of common collocations (la Communauté Européenne - the European Community)
• literal translation - the translation of one item in the SL by one item in the TL (faire un discours - make a speech)
• functional equivalent - the use of a culturally neutral TL term to define the SL culture-specific term (le baccalauréat - the French secondary school leaving examination)
• descriptive equivalent - the explanation of an SL culture-specific term (le baccalauréat - the French secondary school leaving examination in which candidates take 8-10 subjects and which is necessary to gain admission to higher education)
• translation couplet - a strategy which combines two of the above (baccalauréat - the 'baccalauréat', the French secondary school leaving examination)

Peter Newmark was also of great importance to translation studies in the Spanish-speaking world. He was the bimonthly column writer, The Linguist, and a member of the editorial board of the Institute of Linguists.

Publications (selection)

• Approaches to translation. Pergamon Press 1980
• A Textbook of Translation. Prentice Hall 1987
• About Translation. Multilingual Matters 1991
• Paragraphs on Translation. Multilingual Matters 1993
• More Paragraphs on Translation. Multilingual Matters 1998

literature

• Radegundis Stolze: Translation Theories. An introduction. Fool 2005

Web links

• In memoriam Peter Newmark
• Interview to Peter Newmark, Professor of Translation at the University of Surrey
• Obituary for Peter Newmark in the Guardian

Individual evidence

1. ^ The Curse of Dogma in Translation Studies in Lebende Sprachen 3/1991 101-108, p. 105
2. ↑ See Peter Newmark: A Textbook of Translation. London 1988 §7, 8
3. ^ Obituary for Peter Newmark from the European Society for Translation Studies