Notes

Week 4
*The Translator's Intelligence*
At first glance the desires to translate faster and to translate reliably might seem to be at odds with one another. One commonsensical assumption says that the faster you do something, the more likely you are to make mistakes; the more slowly you work, the more likely that work is to be reliable. The reliable translator shouldn’t make (major) mistakes, so s/he shouldn’t try to translate fast.

*THE TRANSLATOR’S MEMORY*
Translation is an intelligent activity, requiring creative problem-solving in novel textual, social, and cultural conditions. this intelligent activity is sometimes very conscious; most of the time it is subconscious, “beneath” our conscious awareness.

*Representational and procedural memory*
Memory experts distinguish between representational memory and procedural memory. Representational memory records what you had for breakfast this morning, or what your spouse just told you to get at the store: specific events. Procedural memory helps you check your e-mail, or drive to work: helps you perform skills or activities that are quickly sublimated as unconscious habits.
*Intellectual and emotional memory*
Brain scientists also draw a distinction between two different neural pathways for memory, one through the hippocampus, recording the facts, the other through the amygdala, recording how we feel about the facts.
“The hippocampus is crucial in recognizing a face as that of your cousin. But it is the amygdala that adds you don’t really like her.”
Amygdala arousal – “emotional memory” – adds force to all learning. This is why it is always easier to remember things that we care about.

CONTEXT, RELEVANCE, MULTİPLE ENCODİNG
*Context*
The setting in which a thing is found or occurs is extremely important for the associations that are so crucial to memory. Without that context it is just an isolated item; in context, it is part of a whole interlocking network of meaningful things.
*Relevance*
The less relevant a thing is to you, the harder it will be for you to remember it. The more involved you are with it, the easier it will be for you to remember it. Things that do not impinge on our life experience “go in one ear and out the other.
*Multiple Encoding*
The general rule for memory is that the more senses you use to register and rehearse something, the more easily you will remember it.

*THE TRANSLATOR’S LEARNİNG STYLES*
Translation is intelligent activity. But what kind of intelligence does it utilize?
• musical intelligence: the ability to hear, perform, and compose music with complex skill and attention to detail; musical intelligence is often closely related to, but distinct from, mathematical intelligence
• spatial intelligence: the ability to discern, differentiate, manipulate, and produce spatial shapes and relations; to “sense” or “grasp” (or produce) relations of tension or balance in paintings, sculptures, architecture, and dance; to create and transform fruitful analogies between verbal or musical or other forms and spatial form; related to mathematical intelligence through geometry, but once again distinct
•bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: the ability to understand, produce, and caricature bodily states and actions (the intelligence of actors, mimes, dancers, many eloquent speakers); to sculpt bodily motion to perfected ideals of fluidity, harmony, and balance (the intelligence of dancers, athletes, musical performers)
•personal intelligence, or “emotional intelligence” (see Chapter 6): the ability to track, sort out, and articulate one’s own and others’ emotional states (“intrapersonal” and “interpersonal” intelligence, respectively; the intelligences of psychoanalysts, good parents, good teachers, good friends); to motivate oneself and others to direct activity toward a desired goal (the intelligence of all successful professionals, especially leaders).
• logical/mathematical intelligence: the ability to perceive, sort out, and manipulate order and relation in the world of objects and the abstract symbols used to represent them (the intelligence of mathematicians, philosophers, grammarians)
• linguistic intelligence: the ability to hear, sort out, produce, and manipulate the complexities of a single language (the intelligence of poets, novelists, all good writers, eloquent speakers, effective teachers); the ability to learn foreign languages, and to hear, sort out, produce, and manipulate the complexities of transfer among them (the intelligence of translators and interpreters)
*Context*
It makes a great deal of difference to learners where they learn – what sort of physical and social environment they inhabit while learning.
*Field-dependent learners* learn best in “natural” contexts, the contexts in which they would learn something without really trying, because learning and experiencing are so closely tied together.
*Field-independent learners* learn best in artificial or “irrelevant” contexts. They prefer to learn about things, usually from a distance.
*Flexible-environment learners* like variety in their learning environments, and move easily and comfortably from one to another: various degrees of noisiness or silence, heat or cold, light or darkness; while standing up and walking around, sitting in comfortable or hard chairs, or lying down; in different types of terrain, natural or artificial, rough or smooth, chaotic or structured
*Structured-environment learners* tend to have very specific requirements for the type of environment in which they work best: in absolute silence, or with a TV or radio on.
*Relationship-driven learners* are typically strong in personal intelligence; they learn best when they like and trust the presenter.
*Content-driven learners* are typically stronger in linguistic and logical/mathematic than in personal intelligence; they focus most fruitfully on the information content of a written or spoken text. Learning is dependent on the effective presentation of information, not on the learner’s feelings about the presenter.