The impact of style on the quality of writing and translation

Gadomska, Agnieszka; Szwed, Marcin

The impact of style on the quality of writing and translation

StatusVoR

Dublin Core metadata

Authors

Gadomska, Agnieszka

Szwed, Marcin

Monograph

Cultural conceptualizations in translation and language applications

Editor

Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Barbara

Date

2020

Publisher

State University of Applied Sciences in Konin

Pages

169-181

ISBN

9783030433352

Series

Second Language Learning and Teaching

ISSN of series

2193-7648

Weblink

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-43336-9_10

Access date

2024-07-02

Abstract EN

The “secret” of style seems easy and straightforward; yet, it is hard to put in practice. For years, it has had many distinguished advocates: Strunk (1918), Orwell (1946), Vonnegut (1985), Lesikar (2001), (Williams 2015) etc. but not enough practitioners. “Teaching the principles of style … has long tradition especially at the American academic institutions. One of the biggest authorities among the experts on style has been the late Joseph Williams from Chicago University. His academic coursebook, entitled Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace was first published in 1981 and up till now has had more than eleven editions, with the latest one published in 2015 and co-edited by Joseph Bizup” (Gadomska, 2017). Williams proposes ten principles, which when applied, result in “writing clearly.” The authors observed that although these ideas were formulated for English, they can, surprisingly, also be effective (for the most part) in writing in Polish. Moreover, they help paraphrase complex discourse, which results in its better understanding and, consequently, improved quality. This in turn may have a positive effect on the text’s translation. In fact, the style of the original may have an impact not only on the way the author is perceived but also the translated is evaluated. “Unclear writing is a social problem, but it often has private causes.” (Williams and Bizup, 2015, p. 4). The authors of the paper present the intercultural universality of the ten principles by Williams with a particular focus on applying them in translation practice. Having made the claim that clarity may have a significant impact on performance in translation, the authors discuss the notion of translation quality with particular emphasis on the ways in which it can be measured and evaluated. Subsequently, the authors propose and attempt to justify a paradigm for evaluating quality against communicative value. The case study consists of an analysis of a diverse range of English texts which could benefit from a more diligent approach to stylistics, and their subsequent comparison to ones where the ten principles have been observed to a greater extent. Further, translations of both groups of texts performed by university students are analysed with a view to finding out whether writing clearly may in fact lead to better translation output (i.e. whether the ten principles tend to transpire in the target text or, quite simply, become lost in translation).

Organisational Unit

Wydział Nauk Humanistycznych w Warszawie

URI

https://share.swps.edu.pl/handle/swps/769

Version

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Acquisition Date3.04.2025

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Acquisition Date3.04.2025