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In the subsequent four chapters on free and forced vibrations, the speech mechanism as sound generator, the vocal tract and, finally, periodic and aperiodic sounds, previously presented data are tied to added basic components to form a view of the totality of speech processes from the point of view of physics. Even so, the complexity of speech is not neglected, a fact that contributes very much to the reader’s pleasure. AcouFtic Analysis: The Sound Spectrograph is the title of Chapter 9. This gives an account of the possibilities and limitations of a device which has for a long time been part of the standard equipment of phonetics laboratories. The reader is now perfectly prepared to study the next chapter called Acoustic Features of English Sounds, the scope of which is much wider than indicated by the title. As a matter of fact it gives a survey of acoustic occurrences relevant to quite a few aspects of general linguistics. The value of The Physics of Speech becomes increasingly pronounced as one proceeds through its many sections guided by the index at the end. It attains its logical acme in the last chapter entitled Acoustic Cuesfor the Recognition of Speech Sounds. It would be pointless for any reviewer to refer to the fact that the accuracy of the sonagraph equals _+5% for frequency and 28% for time. Possible deficiencies of exactitude in various measuring situations are clearly implied when they are not explicitly emphasized. It is evident from what has been said above that The Physics of Speech is not centred on different acoustic particulars in the field of speech such as, for examples, prosodic items in an individual language, still less on specific methods for tackling peculiarities within a limited speech area. This accounts for the fact that the author has not dwelt, for instance, upon synthetic speech and its sophisticated methodology, although he is an eminent expert in this branch of phonetic science. On the other hand, as was previously indicated, the final chapter sums up, with supreme lucidity, the content of the book and illustrates it by means of synthesizer control patterns and spectrograms. Thus the excellent introductory chapter with its holistic outlook on speech communication finds its counterpart in the concluding chapter with its survey of acoustic fundamentals in application. The Physics of Speech is a major achievement. Besides the instructive and meticulous presentation of physical concepts within the field of speech processes it initiates the reader into the world of phonetic laboratory work. For anyone concerned with the acoustic aspects of speech communication, Fry’s book is indispensable.

Department of Linguistics University of Umei S-901 87 UmeH Sweden

Carl-Gustaf Soderberg

GRAHS, Lillebill, Gustav KORLEN, and Bertil MALMBERG (eds.), Theory and Practice of Translation. Nobel Symposium 39, Stockholm, September 6-10,1976. Bern, Frankfurt and Las Vegas: Lang 1978, 355 pp., SFr 50.00.

This volume is a record of the proceedings of a symposium which some of the leading European scholars and practitioners in the area of translation held at Stockholm with the intention of discussing basic problems of translation theory against the background of translation practice. Owing to both its origin and its structure the book forms part of a series

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of proceedings such as Hartmann Vernay (1970), Wilss and Thome (1974) or Drescher and Scheffzek (1976). During the symposium a wide range of problems relevant to research into translation were discussedmethodological problems within thescience of translation,questions concerning mechanical and Bible translation, theoretical and practical aspects of literary translation as well as borderline areas such as translation and sociolinguistics. Fortunately, the focus was not merely theoretical and in several instances the dialectic tension between theory and practice made itself felt. Apart from this antagonism between theory and practice the two major areas to be discussed were problems of translatability and translation equivalence. Of considerable importance in these areas is KOLLER’s paper. KOLLER places equivalence in translation on the level of parole as opposed to ‘correspondence’, a concept belonging to contrastive linguistics and being connected with langue. His five frames of reference for translation equivalence: extralinguistic context, connotative equivalence, text normative equivalence, pragmatic equivalence and formal equivalence, are a promising attempt at overcoming the stagnation which has characterized recent discussions of translation equivalence. Several other such attempts can be seen at various places in the 12 discussions held at the symposium. At the same time, KOLLER tries to view his concept of equivalence from an objective distance by pointing to difficulties in translatability especially with regard to connotative equivalence. While KOLLER develops his ideas without explicit reference to specific textual type, ALBERTSEN is primarily concerned with literary texts. His view that “die Aquivalenz an sprachlichem Ausstrahlungsniveau fiir wichtiger (zu halten sei) als etwa die Aquivalenz der Weltanschauung unter Aufgabe der Ausstrahlungskraft” (197) makes it clear that the concept of equivalence is not a fixed one but is dynamically linked to the respective textual type. ALBERTSEN also takes up the most controversial i.e. most radical position vis a vis the issue of translatability. Starting from the impossibility of an identical reception of a text by different individuals, he considers translatability to be impossible by definition. However, the reader will notice the incompatibility of untranslatability on the one hand, and a qualitatively gauged classification of translators on the other hand, which in itself contains a description of actual translation procedures. FRANCESCATO’s paper is a contribution to finding a practical solution to a specific equivalence problem. He differentiates between ‘word’ and ‘semantic content’; an equivalent target language element must be as close as possible to the source language relationship between the two. He suggests referring to cognitive universals rather than linguistic ones and explains his suggestion pointing to some metaphors using r&e and its corresponding terms in several European languages. Unfortunately, there is no concrete proposal as to practical application. A dictionary-type listing of metaphors and polysemies does not yet guarantee their situationally and textually adequate application. The overall impression of this volume in its richly varied, often healthily controversial viewpoints - as demonstrated by the above exemplary review of contributions about translatability and equivalence - is that it constitutes a positive stimulus for the discussion of theoretical problems of translation. New trends in research on translation are also included: GRAVIER deals with didactic issues of translation, although he is not in a position to answer all the questions in this area; DENISON is concerned with foreign language policy and sociocultural dimensions of translation; OKSAAR compares translators and multi-lingual individuals. Moreover, the papers by KOLLER, COSERIU, ALBERTSEN and ENKVIST are definitely innovatory. Unfortunately FRGLAND’s and WILSS’ papers have lost their originality and newness on account of previous publication,

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although FRGLAND manages to move beyond a survey of her book, posing a number of important issues in translation criticism. Resulting from his area of specialization (cf. Wandruszka, 1969), WANDRUSZKA succeeds in making interesting statements about the origin of ‘false friends’ giving a multitude of concrete occurrences; his suggestions might give rise to both psycho- and sociolinguistic analyses of the process of translation. SIGURD gives a good overview of the present state of the art in machine translation. The inclusion of a topic relating to machine translation in this volume, may be taken as an indication of the wide range of aspects dealt with at the symposium. Through the heterogeneous contributions to the symposium it was made possible to advance the discussion about translation as well as introduce new issues for deliberation. The 12 discussions which took place at the symposium and which are recorded in detail in this volume present interesting and often challenging stimuli reflecting the highly professional nature of the meeting. This means, of course, that the volume cannot represent an introduction to problems of translation, as the title may suggest. Rather, the organizers of the symposium and the editors of this volume are concerned with scientific discussion (as mentioned above) and with a connection between theory and practice. Especially, practising translators rightly criticize the gap between the two, cf. e.g. BJURSTRGM: “J’aimerais essayer d’y repondre en me laissant d’ailleurs aux digressions qu’elles peuvent m’inspirer. C’est une methode hasardeuse, mais proche du travail pratique qui est le mien” (109) or PALM: “ . ..mochte ich such sagen, da8 uns moderne iibersetzungstheoretische Ausfiihrungen sehr wenig iiber das hinaus geholfen haben, was uns die eigenen Erfahrungen und das eigene Nachdenken schon gelehrt haben” (143). By providing for a continuous confrontation between translation theory and translation practice as manifest in the discussions, this volume explicitly takes a stand against research which is too far removed from the practice of translation and which only serves its own purpose. Two points of criticism must be made, however: one concerns a continual terminological inconsistency by ROBEL, whose ambiguous use of ‘translation’ - especially in the context of the entire volume - tends to confuse the reader (“. . . un texte est l’ensemble de toutes ses traductions significativement differentes” (98)) and the second refers to the unsystematic and very often incomplete bibliographic references provided by the contributors. The interested reader thus finds it unnecessarily difficult to study certain areas in depth.

REFERENCES

DRESCHER, H.W. and S. Scheffzek (eds.), Theorie und Praxis des ifbersetzens und Dolmetschens. Bern and Frankfurt, 1976.

HARTMANN, P. and H. Vernay (eds.), Sprachwissenschaft und ijbersetzen. Mtinchen, 1970.

WANDRUSZKA, M., Sprachen - vergleichlich und unvergleichlich.Miinchen, 1969. WILSS, W. and G. Thome (eds.), Aspekte der theoretischen, sprachenpaarbezogenen

und angewandten iibersetzungswissenschaft I. Heidelberg, 1974. WILSS, W. and G. Thome (eds.), Aspekte der theoretischen, sprachenpaarbezogenen

und angewandten iibersetzungswissenschaft II. Heidelberg, 1974.

Seminar fiir Sprachlehrforschung Bochum der Ruhr-Universitat Postfach 10 21 48 D-4630 Bochum Federal Republic of Germany

Frank G. Konigs