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BOOK NOTICES 183 have once again produced a clear, fresh, mediumlength book both for translators and interpreters and for teachers and students alike. Based on the view of the translator/interpreter as the communicator of a text, a culture, and an ideology, this book discusses vital elements of the translating process as they relate to the various tasks of translation and interpretation. Thus, the book examines unity, texture, register, sensitivity , and cross-cultural communication as these concepts apply to such fields as text translation, interpreting , screen translating, and Bible translation. The book rejects such traditional views as literary vs. technical translation and instead develops the idea that each element is vital and pertinent in every oral or written text. The book takes an overall, contextsensitive approach and divides texts into two basic categories, static and dynamic, which reflect in part the formal/(functional)/dynamic translation paradigm The book illustrates effectively the pitfalls and successes of which a translator/interpreter should be aware. It presents solid explanations and practical applications in the various fields of translating and interpreting. Essentially, The translator as communicator evolves around a three-stage model of translation (205): (1) source text processing skills, namely recognizing intertextuality, locating situationality, inferring intentionality, organizing texture and structure, and judging informativity in terms of estimated impact on source text readership; (2) transfer skills, namely effectiveness, efficiency, and relevance to the audience design task in fulfillment of a rhetorical purpose; and (3) target text processing skills, namely establishing intertextuality and situationality, creating intentionality, organizing texture and structure, and balancing informativity in terms of estimated impact on target text readership. The book also provides a concise and complete glossary as well as interesting, relevant, and well-explained examples throughout. This is a very useful book. It is a valuable reference tool for both teachers and advanced students of translation and interpreting and a concise, organized, reflexion on translation and interpretation. However, from the point of view of the theory it presents, although not from a pedagogical point of view, its one drawback would seem to be the fact that it consecrates approximately one-fourth of its length and energy to text-level errors, curriculum design, and performance assessment. This last section would prove valuable for a beginner student or teacher in the field, whereas those who have been working or teaching translation and interpretation for a number of years might instead appreciate a developed thesis on the concepts presented in the first three quarters of the book. In light of the last three chapters, the book's title should reflect its pedagogical intentions. Yet despite its teaching manual-based conclusion, the examples and practical applications of current theories, including text analysis, argumentation, semiotics , and text linguistics, are relevant, well presented , and clearly explained, making this book a true intermediate translator's/interpreter's companion . [Lorin Card, Masha Krupp Translation Group, Ottawa.] Parameter der Syntax. By Priyamvada Bondre-Beil. (Linguistische Arbeiten 324). Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1994. Pp. vii, 179. This slightly revised version of Priyamvada Bondre -Beil's (BB) University of Köln dissertation is based on the principles and parameters approach of generative syntax. Challenging current views on parameterization , BB argues that cross-linguistic variation is triggered by morphosyntactic features associated with particular functional head positions. In Ch. 1 (1-10), BB reviews the research goals of generative grammar. Ch. 2 ( 1 1 -45) introduces basic assumptions of the principles and parameters framework providing a systematic relation between UG principles and grammars of individual languages, mediated through parameters accounting for synchronic as well as diachronic variation. The discussion oftheta and case theory illustrates how language variation is accounted for m terms of variation with respect to parameter values, i.e. how directionality constraints on theta marking and case marking capture cross-linguistic variation regarding word order. Introducing two further parameter hypotheses in Ch. 3 (46-58), i.e. verb second and WH-movement, BB questions the theoretical status of parameters, remarking in particular that a theory ofparameterization allowing for parameters to be universal or language -particular (directionality of government vs. verb second) to affect either levels of representation (WH-movement), phrase structure representations (verb second), or language specific properties oflexical items (anaphors) is...

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