Functional Sentence Perspective in Translator Training

Abstract

This paper highlights the need for raising translation studentsʼ awareness of issues related to the thematic structure of source and target texts. This is a problematic area which significantly affects the quality of translations, especially from English into Polish, the latter having more flexible word order and thus opening more syntactic possibilities. An especially useful tool that may help to address this issue is the theory of Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP) developed by the Prague School. Despite the fact that it is quite elaborate, it may be trimmed to fit more practicallyoriented translation classes. Based on examples from student translations, the paper shows that such notions as communicative dynamism, context dependence/independence, competitors of the verb, setting vs. specification, Presentation Scale vs. Quality Scale, and potentiality can help trainee translators to correctly identify the hierarchy of carriers of communicative dynamism in their source texts and then make informed translation choices.