Unit 1: Overview of Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an

equivalent target-language text. The word translation derives from the Latin translatio (which itself
comes from trans-and fero, the supine form of which is latum, together meaning “to carry across”
or “to bring across”).
The modern Romance languages use words for translation derived from that source or from the
alternative Latin traduco (“to lead across”). The Germanic (except Dutch) and Slavic languages
likewise use calques of these Latin sources.
Translators always risk inappropriate spill-over of source-language idiom and usage into the
target-language translation. On the other hand, spill-overs have imported useful source-language
calques and loanwords that have enriched the target languages. Indeed, translators have helped
substantially to shape the languages into which they have translated.
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this chapter, students should be able to:
a. identify the history, purposes, connections, and theoretical bases of translation as an
applied language context; and
b. discuss the relevance of context retention as relevant process in translation from one
language to the other.

I. Information and Motivation Phase

Watch the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoBIlnM2iBg
After watching, make a reflection through answering the following questions;
1. How and why translation of word/ phrase affects in creating meaning to utterances
produce?
2. Why is it necessary to a language teacher be knowledgeable on the theories, principles
and context of translation works?
II. Input and Presentation Phase
A. History of Translation
Manual Translation
Approx.2.000 B.C
The first appearances of written partial translations exist from 2.000 B.C of the Epic of
Gilgamesh from Sumerian into Asian languages.
The Rosetta Stone
Approx.1799 B.C
One of the first written evidences of this process was the Rosetta Stone, where was found
a recorded text on Egyptian, hieroglyph, demotic and Greek that served to deciphering
hieroglyphics different of the period (1799 BC)
The House of Wisdom to train a translator base

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Approx. 813
Caliph Al-Mamun built the House of Wisdom to train a translator base, establish
terminology, and control translation quality. The right skills flourish best with proper
infrastructure and good tools.
The first multilingual publishing industry
1500
After millennia of laborious copying moveable print technology was introduced in the 15 th
century. It killed off Latin, and created the first multilingual publishing industry. 500 years
before, block-printing had been used in Asia to print the Chinese translation of the
Buddhist Tripitika.
Contributions of Martin Luther
Approx. 1601
In Europe, Luther’s German translation of the Bible was one of the first great print runs in
history. But the explosion of knowledge through printed translation started worrying 17 th
century Europeans.
The industrial revolution
Approx.1800
The industrial revolution created a demand for business documentation, this development
created in turn the need to formalize some of the translation specialities.
The translation specialities
1940
Since 1940 engineers have been trying to automate the translation process and to aid
manual translation mechanically machine translation, machine translation is the process
where in theory a translation is performed by a computer program in reality machine
translation is free service available online, this produces a translation which is often
sufficient to understand the general idea of the source text, however such content can be
often more humorous than enlightening.
The electronic computed
1950
The electronic computed arrived in the 1950s, not just a number cruncher but a symbol
processor. It promised software solutions to almost every translation automation problem.
Translators could finally use machines to do the heavy lifting.
Computer-assisted translation (CAT)
Approx.1960-Approx.1990
Type of manual translation where a person is assisted by a computer software, this can
involve a dictionary or grammar software but it usually refers to a series of specialized
translation software such as concordance and translation memory has a professional
translator should have a good knowledge of the language he/she is translating from an
excellent knowledge of the language he/she is translating into he/she should also be
familiar with the subject of the source text.
B. Purposes of Translation
Translation is linked with an awareness of democratic potential: it is a weapon against
obscurantism, realization of the material, social and cultural inequalities often associated with

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 ethnic and linguistic group as have to be at least drastically reduced. Here are wider purposes
of translation:
1. To contribute understanding and peace between nations, groups and individuals. This
puts more emphasis on the pragmatic than on the referential component of translation-the
effect on the readership, the manner, the style, which is scoffed at by many technical
translators-the difference between the neutral and the polarize sense.
2. To transmit knowledge in plain, appropriate and accessible language, in particular in
relation to technology transfer-defining technology not in the old sense of applied science,
but as all the means and knowledge used to provide objects necessary for human
sustenance and comfort.
3. To explain and mediate between cultures on the basis of a common humanity, respecting
their strengths, implicitly exposing their weaknesses. This doesn’t necessarily mean
translating every cultural expression by its cultural or functional equivalent.
Language can conceal crimes with generic words/euphemisms such as ‘organize’,
but literal translation can show up the depths of one nation’s culture by converting
it into words where emotions that have no target language connotations are
exposed in their absurdity and grotesqueness.
4. To translate the world’s great books, the universal works in which the human spirit is
enshrined and lives: poetry, sociology and politics, of individuals and social behaviour.
These are the works which, in principle, should be retranslated for each generation, where
the universal outweighs the cultural.
5. Translation is as general aid or as a skill required in the acquisition of a foreign language.
C. Translation as part of Applied Linguistics
Translation and interpreting are forms of linguistic mediation that involve rendering written or oral
text from one language to another. As language-based activities that have practical implications,
they are often seen as falling within the remit of applied linguistics.
Translation is generally seen to be related to Linguistics because like Linguistics whose object of
study is language, Translation is also concerned with aspects of language and derives some of
its principles from the general theory of language.
The different linguistic approaches constructively influenced different fields of translation towards
the end of the last millennium. This impact was found to be primarily of structural nature and,
namely, the phonetic, phonological, morphological, and syntactic aspects were hailed as
instruments for improving studies in translation as well as interpretation. As of mid20th century,
the functional study of languages has continued to attract many, bringing about more investigation
into semantics, pragmatics, style, and text-related issues in languages and, thus, bringing further
insight into which factors give rise to the use of linguistic theories in translation.

Roman Jakobson (1959) tells us of the need to take style into account in translation so as to pave
the way towards creative disposition. However, the work carried out by Nida (1964) and Catford
(1965) concerning the adoption of linguistic properties to translation theory did not manage to go
any further than just defining the way in which meaning is taken from one language and given in
another while translating. Similarly, others such as Bassnett (1980), Gentzer (1993), and Munday
(2001) seem to be only partially concerned with the functional linguistic analysis of texts and their
influence when it comes to on contemporary translation studies.

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In early 20th century, experts noticed that sentences serve many functions other than just an
arrangement of words and phrases. In this respect, the analytic approach adapted by the Prague
school paved the way to a detailed structural study of languages, to be followed by Chomsky‟s
work in the 1950 on the syntactic studies – one to be observed with his transformational
generative grammar. In time, there was this understanding in the 1960s that lexical and syntactic
studies are not able to properly justify the functional characteristics of a language, driving the
specialists to shift from lexical to textual analysis, and discourse in particular.

Textual analysis was said to be taken as a problem-solving activity and that it is one of the tasks
to be completed before translational analysis in order to highlight alternative ways to
understanding the text as it deserves be; the argument went further that, in the absence of such
analysis, comprehension can only take place at surface and not sufficiently in-depth (Wills 1996,
172-173). The main idea here is that, for a translated work to be rendered successful, lexicon,
phraseology, (intersentential) grammar, and the text itself need to be combined in order to achieve
elegance and a desired outcome.

In Holmes’ scheme, Applied Translation Studies is further divided into four subsections. The first
is translator training, probably the main area of concern. The second is the production of
translation aids like lexicographical and terminological reference works, and grammars which are
tailor-made to suit translators’ requirements. The third area is the establishment of translation
policy, where the translation scholar’s task is to render informed advice to others in defining the
place and role of translators and translations in society. The last one is translation criticism, the
level of which is frequently very low, and in many countries still quite uninfluenced by
developments within translation studies (Shuttleworth & Cowie, 2014).

D. Theoretical Bases of Translation

Roman Jakobson(1959)
In his essay “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation” (1959), Roman Jakobson states that meaning
of a word is a linguistic phenomenon. Using semiotics, Jakobson believes that meaning lies with
the signifier and not in the signified. Thus, it is the linguistic verbal sign that gives an object its
meaning. Interpretation of a verbal sign according to Roman Jakobson can happen in three ways:
intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic. In the case of intralingual translation, the changes
take place within the same language. Thus a verbal sign (word) belonging to a particular language
is replaced by another sign (word) belonging to the same language. Interlingual translation on
the other hand can be seen as replacing a verbal sign with another sign but belonging to a different
language. In intersemiotic translation,it is more than focusing on the words, emphasis is on the
overall message that needs to be conveyed. Thus the translator, instead of paying attention to
the verbal signs, concentrates more on the information that is to be delivered. Jakobson uses the
term ‘mutual translatability’ and states that when any two languages are being compared, the
foremost thing that needs to be taken into consideration is whether they can be translated into
one another or not. Laying emphasis on the grammar of a particular language, he feels that it
should determine how one language is different from another. Also, Jakobson deals with the
problem of ‘deficiency’ in a particular language. He believes that all cognitive experiences can be
expressed in language and while translating whenever there is a lack or ‘deficiency’ of words’,
‘loan words’, ‘neologisms’ and ‘circumlocutions’ can be used to fill in this lack.

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Reinforcing the fact that one of the factors that translation has to take care of is the grammatical
structure of the target language, Jakobson believes that it becomes tedious to try to maintain
fidelity to the source text when the target language has a rigid grammatical framework which is
missing in the source language. Jakobson, in his essay also brings in the relationship between
gender and the grammar of a particular language.

James Holmes’ Map of Translation Studies

James Stratton Holmes was a Dutch poet and translator. He was born in the United States,
in Collins, Iowa, on May 2, 1924, and died in Amsterdam on November 6, 1986. Holmes moved
permanently to the Netherlands in 1950. He sometimes published his work under his real name
James S. Holmes, and sometimes under the pen names Jim Holmes and Jacob Lowland. In 1956,
Holmes was the first non-Dutch translator to be awarded the prestigious Martinus Nijhoff Award,
the most important recognition given to translators of creative texts from or into Dutch (n/a, 2016).
Holmes’ work ‘The Name and Nature of Translation Studies’ (1972) is widely recognized as
founding Translation Studies as a coordinating research program. His papers on translation made
Holmes a key member of Descriptive Translation Studies. Still today he is frequently cited in the
bibliographies in this field (n/a, 2016).

A famous classification of translation concepts and theories has been given by Holmes in
his ‘map of translation studies’. According to his scheme, translation studies are classified into
‘pure’ and ‘applied’ areas. ‘Pure’ translation studies are subdivided into ‘descriptive’ and
‘theoretical’ studies. Descriptive translation studies (DTS) are categorized into three
orientations: product-oriented, function-oriented, and process-oriented. Theoretical translation
studies (THTS) are either ‘general’ or ‘partial’. Partial theories are restricted based on medium,
area, rank, text-type, time, or problem. The next branch of translation studies is ‘applied’ one,
referring to the application of translation in other fields and disciplines.

1. Pure Branch of Translation Studies (Descriptive Translation Studies)

As a field of pure research, translation studies has two main objectives which are (1) to
describe the phenomena of translating and translation as they manifest themselves in the world
of our experience, and (2) to establish general principles by means of which these phenomena
can be explained and predicted. The two branches of pure translation studies associated with
these objectives are designated descriptive translation studies (DTS) or translation description
(TD) and theoretical translation studies (THTS) or translation theory (TTH) (Venuti, 2004)

Product-oriented DTS, that area of research which describes existing translations, has
traditionally been a significant area of academic research in translation studies. Its starting point
is the description of individual translations, or text-focused TD. A second phase is that of
comparative TD, in which comparative analyses are made of various translations of the same
text, either in a single language or in several languages. Such individual and comparative
descriptions provide the materials for surveys of larger corpora of translations. Such descriptive
surveys can be larger in scope, diachronic as well as synchronic, and one of the eventual goals
of product-oriented DTS is a general history of translation (Venuti, 2004).

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 Function-oriented DTS is interested in the description of translation’s function in the
recipient socio-cultural situation. It is a study of contexts rather than texts. Greater emphasis on
it can result in the development of a field of study sociology for (or—less felicitous but more
accurate, since it is a legitimate area of translation studies as well as of sociology—socio-
translation studies) (Venuti, 2004).

Process-oriented DTS concerns itself with the process or act of translation. The problem
of what exactly happens inside the translator’s mind as he creates a new text in another language
has been the subject of much speculation on the part of translation’s theorists, but there has been
very little attempt at systematic investigation of this process under laboratory conditions.

2. Pure Branch of Translation Studies (Translation Theories)

The other main branch of pure translation studies, theoretical translation studies or translation
theory, is, as its name implies, interested in using the results of descriptive translation studies, in
combination with the information available from relevant fields and disciplines, to evolve
principles, theories, and models which will serve to explain and predict what translation is and will
be (Venuti, 2004).

Louis G.Kelly: the true interpreter

6 Contemporary theories to translation

The six main principal translation theories: sociological, communicational, hermeneutic, linguistic,
literary and semiotic.

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1. The sociolinguistic approach

According to the sociolinguistic approach to translation, the social context defines what is and is
not translatable and what is or is not acceptable through selection, filtering and even censorship.
According to this perspective, a translator is inevitably the product of his or her society: our own
sociocultural background is present in everything we translate.

2. The communicative approach

This perspective is referred to as interpretive. Researchers like D. Seleskovitch and M. Lederer

developed what they called the “theory of sense,” mainly based on the experience of conference
interpreting. According to this perspective, meaning must be translated, not language. Language
is nothing more than a vehicle for the message and can even be an obstacle to understanding.
This explains why it is always better to deverbalize (instead of transcoding) when we translate.

3. The hermeneutic approach

The hermeneutic approach is mainly based on the work of George Steiner, who believes that any
human communication is a translation. In his book After Babel he explains that translation is not
a science but an “exact art”: a true translator should be capable of becoming a writer in order to
capture what the author of the original text “means to say.”

4. The linguistic approach

Linguists like Vinay, Darbelnet, Austin, Vegliante, and Mounin, interested in language text,
structuralism, and pragmatics, also examined the process of translating. According to this
perspective, any translation (whether it’s a marketing translation, a medical translation, a legal
translation or another type of text) should be considered from the point of view of its fundamental
units; that is, the word, the syntagm and the sentence.

5. The literary approach

According to the literary approach, a translation should not be considered a linguistic endeavor
but a literary one. Language has an “energy”: this is manifested through words, which are the
result of experiencing a culture. This charge is what gives it strength and ultimately, meaning: this
is what the translation-writer should translate.

6. The semiotic approach

Semiotics is the science that studies signs and signification. Accordingly, in order for there to be
meaning there must be a collaboration between a sign, an object and an interpreter. Thus, from
the perspective of semiotics, translation is thought of as a way of interpreting texts in which
encyclopedic content varies and each sociocultural context is unique.

E. Context Retention

Why context is important in translation?

Context.

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The context influences the meaning of a phrase or sentence. It is linked to the environment in
which the communication takes place. In translation, the context is very important: one word may
mean a different thing depending the context in which it is used.

Understanding.

To translate you need to understand the text. A good understanding is the key to an efficient
translation. A sentence or a text is composed of words and phrases, but it requires thought,
comparing the sentences around it to fully understand its meaning.

Translation

Translation has to take into account in which the industry or field the document will be used, and
its purpose. Translation / language can be targeted at specific fields; its context can be technical,
medical, legislative etc.

Specialization

Being able to translate specialized documentation means the translator has to have specific skills
and knowledge in order to understand the context and how to phrase a translation. That means
translators need to be specialized in a specific field to translate correctly. You need to understand
engines, for example, to describe them. Knowing an engine is powered by combustion and a
motor by electricity would mean you should use different words to describe how power is supplied.

F. Principles of Equivalence

1. Vinay and Darbelnet and their definition of equivalence in translation

✓ Viewed equivalence-oriented translation as a procedure which ‘replicates the same

situation as in the original ,whilst using completely different wording’
✓ They also suggest that if the procedure is applied during the translation process, it can
maintain the stylistic impact of the SL text in the TL text.
✓ Equivalence is therefore the ideal method when the translator has to deal with proverbs,
idioms, clichés, nominal or adjectival phrases and the onomatopoeia of animal sounds.
✓ With regard to equivalent expressions between language pairs, Vinay and Darbelnet
claim that they are acceptable as long as they are listed in a bilingual dictionary as ‘full
equivalents’.
✓ They conclude by saying that ‘the need for creating equivalences arises from the situation,
and is in the situation of the SL text that translators have to look for a solution.
✓ Indeed, they argue that even if the semantic equivalent of an expression in the SL text is
quoted in a dictionary or a glossary, it is not enough, and it does not guarantee a
successful translation.

2. Jakobson and the concept of equivalence in difference: introduced the notion of ‘

equivalence in difference’.

Roman Jakobson’s study of equivalence gave new impetus to the theoretical analysis of
translation since he introduced the notion of ‘equivalence in difference’. On the basis of his

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 semiotic approach to language and his aphorism ‘there is no signatum without signum’. He
suggest three kinds of translation:

1. Intralingual (within one language, I.e rewording or paraphrase)

2. Interlingual (between two languages)

3. Intersemiotic (between sign symbols)

According to his theory, ‘translation involves two equivalent messages in two different codes’
Jakobson goes on to say that from a grammatical point of view languages may differ from one
another to a greater or lesser degree, but this does not mean that a translation cannot be
possible in other words, that the translator may face the problem of not finding a translation
equivalent.

3. Nida and Taber: Formal correspondence and dynamic equivalence

✓ Nida argued that there are two different types of equivalence, namely:
1. formal equivalence-which in the second edition by Nida and Taber (1982) is referred
to as formal correspondence ‘focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and
content
2. dynamic equivalence—is based upon ‘the principle of equivalent effect’.

Formal correspondence consists of a target language (TL) item which represents the closest
equivalent of a SL word or phrase. Nida and Taber make it clear that there are not always formal
equivalents between language pairs.

They therefore suggest that these formal equivalents should be used wherever possible if the
translation aims at achieving formal rather than dynamic equivalence. The use of formal
equivalents might at times have serious implications in the target text since the translation will not
be easily understood by the target audience.

Dynamic equivalence is defined as a translation principle according to which a translator seeks

to translate the meaning of the original in such a way that the TL wording will trigger the same
impact on the TC audience as the original wording did upon the ST audience.

They argue that ‘frequently’ , the form of the original text is changed; but as long as the change
follows the rules of back transformation in the source language, of contextual consistency in the
transfer, and of transformation in the receptor language, the message is preserved and the
translation is faithful.

4. Catford and the introduction of translation shifts

✓ Catford’s approach to translation equivalence clearly differs from that adopted by Nida
since Catford had a preference for a more linguistic-based approach to translation and
this approach is based on the linguistic work of Firth and Halliday.
✓ His main contribution in the field of translation theory is the introduction of the concepts
of types and shifts of translation.

Catford proposed very broad types of translation in terms of three criteria:

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1. The extent of translation (full translation vs partial translation)

2. The grammatical rank at which the translation equivalence is established (rank-bound

translation vs unbounded translation)

3. The levels of language involved in translation (total translation vs. restricted translation)

There are two main types of translation shifts, namely:

1. level shifts, where the SL item at one linguistic level (e.g. grammar) has a TL equivalent at a
different level (e.g. lexis)

2. category shifts, which are divided into four types:

a. structure-shifts, which involve a grammatical change between the structure of the ST and
that of the TT

b, Class-shifts, when a SL item is translated with a TL item which belongs to a different

grammatical class, i.e. a verb may be translated with a noun;

c. Unit-shifts, which involve changes in rank;

d. Intra-system shifts, which occur when SL and TL possess systems which approximately
correspond formally as to their constitution, but when translation involves selection of a non-
corresponding term in the TL system. For instance, when the SL singular becomes a TL plural.

5. Baker’s approach to translation equivalence

She distinguishes between :

1. Equivalence that can appear at word level and above word level, when translating from one
language into another. Baker acknowledges that in bottom-up approach to translation,
equivalence at word level is the first element be taken into consideration by the translator

2. Grammatical equivalence, when referring to the diversity of grammatical categories across

languages. She notes that grammatical rules may vary across languages and this may pose some
problems in terms of finding a direct correspondence in the TL.

3. Textual equivalence, when referring to the equivalence between a SL text and a TL text in
terms of information and cohesion. Texture is a very a very important feature in translation since
it provides useful guidelines for the comprehension and analysis of the ST which can help the
other translator in his or her attempt to produce a cohesive and coherent text for the TC audience
in specific context.

4. Pragmatic equivalence, when referring to implicatures and strategies of avoidance during the
translation process. Implicature is not about what is explicitly said but what is implied. Therefore,
the translator needs to work out implied meanings in translation in order to get the ST message
across.

G. Fidelity vs Transparency

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 ➢ A translation that meets the first criterion is said to be ‘faithful’ a translation that meets the
second, ‘idiomatic’. The two qualities are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The criteria
for judging the fidelity of a translation vary according to the subject, type and use of the
text, its literary qualities, its social or historical context, etc.
➢ The criteria for judging the transparency of a translation appear more straightforward: an
unidiomatic translation “ sounds wrong”; and , in the extreme case of word-for-word
translations generated by many machine-translation systems often results in paten
nonsense.

1. Summarize Translation theories through Mind Map (focusing

on structure of mind map, creativity and artistry, and synthesis
of the said lesson)
2. What is the principle of equivalence according to experts?
3. Discuss comprehensively the following key concepts:
3.1 translation to applied language studies
3.2 fidelity vs transparency
3.3 context retention in translation work

References :

https://translationjournal.net/January-2018/the-assessment-of-machine-translation-according-to-
holmes-map-of-translation-studies.html

https://www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_1983_num_61_3_5923_t1_0773_0000_2

https://culturesconnection.com/6-contemporary-theories-to-translation/

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Prepared by:

JOCELYN SABAS-CASTRO
Instructor III

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