RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION

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RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION
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RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION

• 1900s - 1930s W. Benjamin, E. Pound, Jorge Luis
  Borges, Ortega y Gasset
• 1940s - 1950s Vladimir Nabokov, Jean-Paul Vinay
  and Jean Darbelnet, Willard van Orman Quine, R.
  Jakobson
• 1960s - 1970s E. Nida, J.C. Catford, Jiri Levy,
• K. Reiss, James Holmes, G. Steiner, Itamar
  Even-Zohar, Gideon Toury, Hans Vermeer, Andre
  Lefevere, William Frawley, Philip Lewis, Antoine
  Berman, Soshana Blum-Kulka, Lory Chamberlain
• 1990s Ernst-August Gutt, Basil Hatim and Jan
  Mason, Keith Harvey, Lawrence Venuti

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TRANSLATION THEORY

• a complete theory of translation has three
• components
• specification of function and goal
• description and analysis of operations
• critical comment on relationships between goal
  and operations
• (Kelly 19791)

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TRANSLATION THEORY

• ? presumes a systematic theory of language with
  
• which it overlaps completely or from which it
  derives
• as a special case according to demonstrable rules
  of
• deduction and application.
• (Steiner 1975 280, emphasis in the original)

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TRANSLATION THEORY

• always rests on particular assumptions about
  language use, even if they are no more than
  fragmentary hypotheses that remain implicit or
  unacknowledged.
• assumptions seem to have fallen into two large
  categories instrumental and hermeneutic
• (Kelly 1979, in Venuti 2000 5)

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TRANSLATION THEORIES

• product-oriented ? concerned with a
  "text-focused" empirical description of
  translations, and with larger corpuses of
  translations in a specific period, language or
  discourse type.
• function-oriented ? introduced a cultural
  component which affected the reception of the TT.
  
• process-oriented ? concerned with the problem of
  the "black box", i.e. what was going on in the
  translator's mind.
• (Holmes 1972, 197512-14)

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TRANSLATION THEORIES

• product-oriented ? emphasis laid on the
  functional aspects of the TL text in relation to
  the SL text
• process-oriented ? emphasis on the analysis of
  what actually takes place during the translating
  process.

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TRANSLATION THEORIES AREAS OF INTEREST

• The History of Translation ? investigates the
  theories of translation and translation criticism
  at different times, the methodological
  development of translation, and the analysis of
  the work of individual translators.
• Translation in the TL Culture ? investigates
  single texts or authors, the influence of a text,
  or author on the absorption of the norms of the
  translated text into the TL system and on the
  principles of selection which operate within that
  system.
• Translation and Linguistics ? concerned with the
  comparative arrangement of linguistic elements of
  the SL and TL texts regarding the phonemic,
  morphemic, lexical, syntagmatic and syntactic
  levels ?it includes the problems of linguistic
  equivalence, linguistic untranslability, and the
  translation problems of non-literary texts.
• Translation and Poetics ? the literary
  translation theory and practice.
• (Bassnett-McGuire 19917-8)

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THE MISERY AND SPLENDOUR OF TRANSLATION

• great translation must carry with it the most
  precise sense possible of the resistant, of the
  barriers intact at the heart of understanding
  (Steiner 1975 378).
• translation ? renders in the target language what
  the source language tends to silence (Venuti
  2000 54, Popa 2008 35)
• the misery of translation ? its impossibility,
  because of the linguistic and cultural
  differences between languages
• the splendour of translation ? the translators
  ability to manipulate these differences and force
  the reader to go into the tradition and universe
  of the foreign language text

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THE MUSTS OF A GOOD TRANSLATION

• Tytler' s rules ? normative prescriptions
  deriving from the subjective and evaluative
  description of a "good translation
• ? the translation should give a complete
  transcript of
• the ideas of the original work
• ? the style and manner of writing should be of
  the
• same character with that of the original
• ? the translation should have all the ease of
  the original composition.
• a "good translation" ? the translation in which
  the merit of the original is so completely
  transfused into another language, as to be as
  distinctly apprehended, and as strongly felt by a
  native of the country to which that language
  belongs, as it is by those who speak the language
  of the original work
• (Tytler 179179, quoted by R. Bell 199111).

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RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION 1920s - 1930s

• translation ? recreating the values accruing to
  the foreign text over time and his utopian vision
  of linguistic harmony (Benjamin 1923)
• the translators happy and creative infidelity
  (Borges 1935)
• translation ? a distinctive linguistic practice,
  as a literary genre apart. (Ortega. Y. Gasset
  1937) the cause of the enormous difficulty of
  translation ? all peoples silence some things
  in order to be able to say others (Ortega. Y.
  Gasset 1937)

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RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION 1950s

• translation theories ? focused on the concept of
  translatability
• Willard van Orman Quines (1950) later pragmatic
  view of translation ? centered on meaning as
  conventional, socially circumscribed, the
  translated (foreign) text being rewritten in
  accordance with the values, beliefs and
  expressive means of the foreign language culture
• the process of dissemination of meaning, time,
  people, cultural boundaries becomes the necessity
  of demonstrating that any language could always
  be shadowed or possessed by another (Nabokov
  1974 qtd by Bontila 2006, in Gonzales and Tolron
  2006 144).

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RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION 1960s -1970s

• translating ? a process of communicating the
  foreign text by establishing a relationship of
  identity or analogy with it (Venuti 2000 121).
• based on the concept of equivalence ? provided
  standards to evaluate translations faithful
  vs. bad translations
• beautiful vs. ugly translations
• G. Mounin (1963) ? the concept of equivalence is
  based on universals of language and culture.
• equivalence ? submitted to lexical, grammatical
  and stylistic analysis.
• text typology and text function ? essential in
  establishing the degree of equivalence between
  the ST and TT

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RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION 1960s -1970s

• Koller (1979 186-191, 1989 99-104) ? main
  concern was equivalence typology
• TYPES OF EQUIVALENCE
• ?denotative depending on an invariance of
  content
• ?connotative depending on similarities of
  register, dialect and style
• ?text-normative based on usage norms specific
  to the text type
• ?pragmatic related to the degree of
  comprehensibility in the TC ?
• ? PRAGMATIC EQUIVALENCE ? made the TT
• easily comprehensible in the TC
• ? FORMAL EQUIVALENCE ? caused linguistic and
  cultural approximations

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RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION 1960s -1970s

• J. C. Catford (1965) ? gave a thorough
  description of the grammatical and lexical shifts
  in translation, which were departures from
  formal correspondence.
• J. Levy (1965) considers that pragmatic
  translation involves a gradual semantic
  shifting due to the fact that translators have
  to choose from many possible solutions. In his
  opinion, shifts work to generalize and clarify
  meaning, changing the style of a literary work
  into a dry and uninspiring description of things
  and actions (Levy 1965 78-80, qtd. in Venuti
  2000 122).
• A. Popovic (1970) ? shifts in translation do not
  occur because the translator wishes to change a
  work, but because he strives to reproduce it as
  faithfully as possible, the kind of faithfulness
  he has in mind being functional, with the
  translator using suitable equivalents in the
  milieu of his time and society (Popovic 1970
  80,82, qtd. in Venuti 2000 122).

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RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION 1970s -1980s

• K. Reiss (1971) ? the functionally equivalent
  translation needs to be based on a detailed
  semantic, syntactic and pragmatic analysis of
  the foreign text (Venuti 2000 122).
• Venuti argues, the pragmatic translator doesnt
  simply analyse the linguistic and cultural
  features of the foreign text, but reverbalizes
  them according to the values of a different
  language and culture, often applying what House
  calls a filter to aid the receptors
  comprehension of the difference (Venuti 2000
  122).
• I. Even-Zohar and G. Toury ? considered
  literature as a polysystem of interrelated
  forms and cannons that represented norms
  constraining the translators choices and the
  translation strategies.
• Even Zohar argued that translation may adhere to
  norms rejected by the source language.

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RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION 1980s

• translation is not a sealed, "nomological"
  science but a
• "cognitive/hermeneutic/associative" one (Wills
  1982 16).
• A translation theory is based upon
• a) the concept of a universal language
• b) a belief that deep-structure transfer is
  possible by a hermeneutic process
• c) a qualitative ranking of texts, from a high
  level incorporating art and science texts to a
  low level including business and pragmatic
  texts.
• translation research must develop a frame of
  reference to view a text as a communication-orient
  ed configuration with a thematic, functional and
  text-pragmatic dimension.

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TYPES OF TRANSLATION
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TYPES OF TRANSLATION

• intralingual translation/ rewording ? an
  interpretation of verbal signs by means of other
  signs in the same language
• interlingual translation/ translation proper ? an
  interpretation of verbal signs by means of some
  other language, which describes the process of
  transfer from SL to TL
• intersemiotic translation/transmutation ? an
  interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs
  of nonverbal sign systems.
• (Jakobson 1959232-9)

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TYPES OF TRANSLATION

• rank-bound translations ? the selection of TL
  equivalents is deliberately confined to one rank,
  used in machine translation, usually at word or
  morpheme rank
• Rank-bound translations set up word-to-word or
  morpheme-to-morpheme equivalences, but not
  equivalences between high-rank units such as the
  group, clause, or sentence such translations are
  often "bad" in that they involve using TL
  equivalents which are not appropriate to their
  location in the TL text, and which are not
  justified by the interchangeability of SL and TL
  texts in one and the same situation (Catford
  196525)
• unbounded translations, i.e. normal, total
  translations in which equivalences shift freely
  up and down the rank scale. (Catford 196524-5)

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TYPES OF TRANSLATION

• full vs. partial translations, referring to the
  extent in a
• syntagmatic sense
• full vs. restricted translations related to the
  levels of
• language involved in the translation process.
• TOTAL TRANSLATION ? the replacement of SL
  grammar and lexis by equivalent TL grammar and
  lexis with consequential replacement of SL
  phonology / graphology by (non-equivalent) TL
  phonology / graphology.
• RESTRICTED TRANSLATION ? the replacement of SL
  textual material by equivalent TL textual
  material at only one level (either phonological
  or graphic), or only at one of the two levels of
  grammar and lexis. (Catford 1965)

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TYPES OF TRANSLATION

• free translation
• ? is always unbounded, as equivalences shunt up
  and down the rank scale, but tend to be at the
  higher ranks, sometimes between larger units than
  the sentence.
• ? characterised by lexical adaptation to TL
  collocational or "idiomatic" requirements
• word-for-word translation ? is rank - bound at
  word rank
• literal translation
• ? may start from a word-for-word translation but
  may make changes in keeping with the TL grammar
  (e.g. inserting additional words, changing
  structures at any rank, etc)
• ?may also be a group-group, or a clause-clause
  translation.
• ? tends to remain lexically word-for-word, i.e.
  to use the highest probability lexical equivalent
  for each lexical item.
• (Catford 1965)

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TYPES OF TRANSLATION

• dynamic /functional (Nida and Taber 1969) vs.
  formal equivalence (Nida 1964)
• DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCE ? equated with the readers
  shadowy presence in the mind of the translator
• FORMAL EQUIVALENCE ? equivalence of both form and
  content between the two texts.
• the equivalent effect ? the desirable result
  rather than the aim of the translation (Newmark
  1981)
• achieving the equivalent effect is unlikely if
• ? the purpose of the SL text is to affect and
  the purpose of the TL text is to inform
• ? there is a clear cultural gap between SL text
  and TL
• text (in fact, translation merely fills a gap
  between two cultures if, felicitously, there is
  no insuperable cultural clash).

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TYPES OF TRANSLATION

• covert vs.overt translations (House 1977)
• ? House insisted on how much the foreign text
  depends on its own culture for intelligibility.
• ? if the significance of a foreign text is
  peculiarly indigenous, it requires a translation
  that is overt or noticeable through its reliance
  on supplementary information, whether in the form
  of expansions, insertions or annotations (House
  1977 24).

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TYPES OF TRANSLATION

• communicative translation
• ? reader-oriented
• ? pragmatic-oriented
• ? functionally-oriented
• semantic translation
• ? the translator may translate less important
  words by culturally neutral third of functional
  terms but not by cultural equivalents (Newmark
  198846)
• ? the translator is faithful to the ST ignoring
  the real world of the target culture
• (Newmark 1977/1981/1988)

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TYPES OF TRANSLATION

• paraphrastic? offering a free version of the
  original, with omissions and additions prompted
  by the exigencies of form, the conventions
  attributed to the consumer, and the translators
  ignorance
• lexical ? rendering the basic meaning of words
  and their order
• literal ? rendering, as closely as the
  associative and syntactical capacities of another
  language allow, the exact contextual meaning of
  the original.
• (Nabokov 1974,1,vii-viii,qtd. in Bontila 2006
  145)

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TYPES OF TRANSLATION

• general translation? the translation or
  interpretation of non-specific language that does
  not require any specialized vocabulary or
  knowledge.
• specialized translation ?specific to different
  domains of activity
• financial translation
• literary translation
• medical translation
• scientific translation
• technical translation
• legal translation

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TYPES OF TRANSLATION

• literary translation ? translation of literary
  texts (poetry, drama, novels, memoires, etc.)
• non-literary translation ? translation of
  non-literary, or pragmatic texts
• (Ionescu 200037)
• The difference between literary and non-literary
  translation
• is that the latter translates what is in the
  text, whereas the
• former must translate what the text implies.
• (Ionescu 200038)