Towards the Issue of Matrix Mapping of the Translation Process

Abstract

This paper analyses the issue of a cognitive model of translation as a matrix structure that provides a new perspective for mapping the translation process. This research is based on J. Holmes’s idea of an integrated approach in translation studies and the model he suggested in his work. Following Holmes, L. Tarvi offers a matrix model that describes internal relations within the translation theory, teaching translation and translator training. This model magnifies various sectors for further modelling. Taking Holmes’s model into consideration and its graphical representation in the work of L. Tarvi, we consider the translation process as having an interdisciplinary, integrating and heuristic nature, which encourages us to search for a new paradigm in its modelling. We present a model of translation in the form of a matrix which consists of 9 blocks or inputs with their horizontal and vertical mapping. Horizontal mapping is done according to three types of the translator’s mental spaces: neurological, representational and conceptual. The vertical mapping is arranged in conformity with three main steps in translation: comprehension, processing and verbalization. Every level is presented with certain cognitive mechanisms, i.e. identification, simultaneous or successive processing, reframing, conceptual correspondence, making a coherent text and reaching communicative goals. The results obtained from a translation experiment lead to new perspectives of seeing the matrix model of translation as a conglomerate of various modelling tools in the translation process depending on the peculiarities of the translation scheme and the translator’s mental processes.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s5p56