Several translation scholars have recognised translation as a form ofdiscourse mediation or discourse presentation (see, for example, Mossop 1998). In line with this, ‘universals’ of translation have also been re-framed in the larger context of discourse mediation, as mediation universals rather than something strictly translationspecific (Ulrych 2009). In the present article, this line of enquiry is developed by comparing some of the alleged universals of translation, namely standardization and explicitation, with insights from literary and narratological studies on the nature of discourse presentation. The notion of reportive or interpretative interference (Sternberg 1982) and Fludernik’s (1993) claim that all represented discourse is typical and schematic in nature seem to bear curious resemblance to the notion of standardization or normalization, posited as a possible universal of translation (Mauranen & Kujamäki 2004). Drawing on the results of my earlier research (Kuusi 2011), I present examples of free indirect discourse (FID) used in Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment with their translations into Finnish. Analyzing the translations, I demonstrate how intranslations, the narratological and literary-theoretical notions of reportive interference and typification/schematization coincide with the translation-theoretical notions of explicitation and standardization.

Abstract.Th is article provides a review of loan translations as a language contact phenomenon from the perspectives of contact linguistics, second language acquisition (SLA) research and translation studies (TS). We discuss both similarities and diff erences in the ways in which loan translations are conceptualized across these three disciplines. Th e discussion highlights a common cognitive basis underlying bilingual language use, SLA and translation, while at the same time the prevailing attitudes to loan translations in these disciplines reveal diff ering underlying ideologies. Th is study is a contribution towards broadening the scope of language contact studies to cover related disciplines that examine similar phenomena.

Tässä artikkelissa tarkastellaan kääntäjäopiskelijoiden selkomukautuksia käännösstrategioiden valossa. Artikkelissa kartoitetaan kääntämisen ja selkomukauttamisen yhteisiä piirteitä ja pohditaan, voidaanko selkomukauttamista tarkastella kielensisäisenä kääntämisenä. Samalla pohditaan kääntäjänkoulutuksen sopivuutta selkomukauttajien mahdolliseksi koulutusväyläksi ja kääntämisen ja selkomukauttamisen rajapinnan hyödynnettävyyttä siinä. Esiin nostetaan myös opiskelijoiden kokemukset selkomukauttamisesta. Aineisto on koostettu Helsingin yliopistossa lukuvuosina 2019–2021 toteutetussa opetuskokeilussa. Kokeilun lähtökohtana on ollut ajatus, että kääntäjäopiskelijoilla on hyvät esivalmiudet selkomukauttamiseen, sillä käännöstehtävissään he ovat tottuneet muokkaamaan tekstejä uudelle vastaanottajakunnalle sopiviksi ja arvioimaan tekstin toimivuutta käyttötarkoitukseensa. Opetuskokeilussa opiskelijat selkomukauttivat tietokirjallisuutta, uutistekstejä ja/tai kaunokirjallisuutta ja kirjoittivat mukautusprosessistaan reflektoivia työselosteita. Teoreettiselta ja metodiselta viitekehykseltään artikkeli nojaa niin käännöstieteeseen kuin selkokielen tutkimukseen. Analyysissa keskitytään opiskelijoiden selkomukautuksissaan käyttämiin pragmaattisiin käännösstrategioihin eli poistoihin, lisäyksiin ja eksplisiittisyyden asteen muutoksiin. Kohteena ovat myös opiskelijoiden ratkaisujen perustelut, omien tuotosten arviointi sekä mukauttamisen asettamat haasteet. Analyysi osoittaa, että kääntäjäopinnoissa omaksutut taidot ovat siirrettävissä selkomukauttamisen kontekstiin: pragmaattiset käännösstrategiat sopivat myös selkomukauttamisen strategioiksi, ja niitä käytettiin monipuolisesti ja genrekohtaisesti eri tavoin. Opiskelijat myös hyödynsivät rinnakkaistekstejä ja sovelsivat referointitekniikkaa. Ongelmalliseksi osoittautui työselosteiden mukaan kuitenkin riittämätön kohderyhmätuntemus, jossa auttaisivat yhteydet kokemusasiantuntijoihin. Kääntäjänkoulutus osoittautuu harkinnanarvoiseksi selkomukauttajien koulutusväyläksi, sillä koulutus tuottaa selkomukauttamisessa keskeisiä taitoja, kuten lukijan ja hänen tietotasonsa huomioimisen ja uuden lukijakunnan kannalta olennaisen tiedon löytämisen.   Easy Language adaptation in the light of translation strategies: findings from translator training The present article approaches translation students’ Easy Language adaptations from a translation-strategic viewpoint. It also charts the commonalities between translation and Easy Language adaptation and examines to what extent adaptation can be conceived as a type of intralingual translation. It asks whether translator education can offer a potential context for learning how to adapt texts as well as how the interface between translating and Easy Language adaptation could be employed here. Moreover, the discussion sheds light on how the students experienced their adapting activities. The research material comes from a teaching experiment carried out by the authors at the University of Helsinki during the academic years 2019–2021. The premise of this experiment was that the participating students already had the good preliminary skills required to produce Easy Language adaptations, since in their interlingual translation exercises they had already learnt how to modify texts to meet the needs of a new readership and to evaluate the functionality of their texts with respect to relevant textual purposes. During the experiment, the students adapted non-fiction, journalistic texts, and/or fiction, and wrote reflective process-related commentaries. As to the theoretical and methodological framework, the article draws on translation studies and Easy Language research. The analysis concentrates on how the students employed pragmatic translation strategies (omission, addition, explicitness changes) in their adaptations. Focus is also placed on the student commentaries, particularly on arguing for diverse solutions, evaluating one’s adaptations and on the challenges posed by adapting. The analysis demonstrates that skills acquired within translator training can be transferred to Easy Language adaptation: pragmatic translation strategies can be applied as adaptation strategies and were applied in a versatile and genre-oriented manner. The students also used parallel texts and employed paraphrasing techniques. One particular problem, the students found, was insufficient knowledge of the target group. Here, feedback from experts by experience could provide a solution.   Translator training appears to offer a potential solution for training future adapters. This is because it produces the skills central to Easy Language adaptations: consideration of the needs of readers and the ability to pinpoint information that is essential for this new readership.

In this article, we analyse translation in the context of revitalisation from the point of view of Language Making. Both translation and revitalisation are based on the idea of languages as distinct entities, and together they are doubly inclined to draw clear-cut borders between languages. The data come from a series of translation courses targeted at speakers and learners of Karelian, a critically endangered Finnic language spoken in Finland and Russia. By analysing the reflective assignments of the translation course participants and focusing on how they report on encountering and overcoming lexical gaps, we examine a very concrete case of Language Making: the creation of new lexical items for Karelian for the purposes of a translation task. Since coining neologisms in our data is mostly based on borrowing or calquing, the data illustrate how the participants perceive language boundaries and the connections between Karelian and other languages. Contrary to what the intersection between translation and revitalisation suggests, a rather flexible view on linguistic borders is displayed. Participants fill in lexical gaps by drawing on all linguistic resources available to them: mainly Finnish and Russian, but also “international” resources and occasionally other languages or other Karelian dialects. To a lesser extent, the data also display the participants’ competing and conflicting ideologies of what is Karelian, what belongs to it and on which or whose model to base the neologisms.

In this paper, translator training is discussed as a form of language revitalisation. Translation has the potential to stimulate the development of an underused language, but this potential is often accompanied by a risk of unwanted source-language influence. In translator training, minority language translators learn to control this influence and critically assess their own translation solutions. If translator training succeeds in empowering speakers of an endangered language to translate, and to translate with an awareness of how their translations might influence the development of the minority language, it can justly be considered language policy par excellence.