Hervey S., Higgins I., Haywood L.M. Thinking Spanish Translation. A Course in Translation Method: Spanish to English

London, New York: Routledge, 2002. — 241 p. — ISBN: 0-203-42952-4This course is not a disguised version of the traditional ‘grammar-andtranslation’ method of language teaching. Our focus is on how to translate from Spanish, not how to communicate in Spanish. We assume that students already have the considerable linguistic resources in Spanish needed to benefit from the course and that they already possess basic dictionary and research skills. Naturally, in using these resources and skills to produce good translations, they inevitably extend and improve their competence in Spanish.
The course is not intended as a disguised version of translation theory, or of linguistics. This does not mean that we avoid technical discussion of linguistic or translation-theoretical issues. However, such issues are not treated out of theoretical interest, but out of direct concern with specific types of problem encountered in translating.
The course has a progressive overall structure and thematic organization. After setting out the fundamental issues, options and alternatives of which a translator must be aware, it examines a series of layers that are of textual importance in translation (‘upwards’ from the nuts and bolts of phonic and graphic details to the generalities of intertextuality and culture). It then moves on, via a series of semantic and stylistic topics (literal meaning, connotation and language variety), to a consideration of textual genres and the demands of translating texts in a range of different genres. If literary genres have, on balance, a higher profile than ‘commercial’ ones, this is partly offset by the use of non-literary texts of various kinds throughout the course (such as speed translation exercises). In any case, ‘commercial’ texts tend to present translation difficulties that are far too narrowly specific in subject matter to be suitable for a general coursebook on translation method. Our aim has been to produce an integrated, non-specialized approach to the various aspects that need to be discussed in the context of a general methodology of translation.