Lingua inglese III - i translation studies

Chapter 1: Main issue of translation studies

The aim of this chapter is to introduce the reader to major concepts of translation studies. The word “translation” has several meanings; it can refer to the general subject field, the product (text) or the process (the act of producing the translation). The process of translation between two different written languages involves the translator changing an original written text (source text ST) in the original language (source language SL) into a written text (target text TT) in a different verbal language (target language TL).

Types of translation

For Jakobson, there exist three types of translation:

• Intralingual translation: Translate something in the same language. Example: when we rephrase an expression or text in the same language to explain or clarify.
• Interlingual translation: A translation from one language to another. Example: a traditional translation.
• Intersemiotic translation: When we translate through the non-verbal system. Example: music, painting.

The translation studies are, for Holmes, “the complex of problems concerned with the phenomenon of translating and translations.” The study on translations developed only in the second half of the twentieth century. Before that, translation had been an element of language learning. In the 1960s, language learning focused on the “grammar translation method,” based on the study of grammatical rules and structures of the foreign language. In the 1970s, a new method was born, the “direct method/communicative approach,” which consists in the natural capacity of students to learn language and repeat authentic language in the classroom.

Research areas in translation studies

Another important area of research is “contrastive analysis,” the study of two pure languages to identify the differences between them. Holmes created a map of translation studies. For Holmes, the translation studies are divided into:

• Applied descriptive translation studies (DTS):
  • Examination of product: Product-oriented DTS involves an analysis of a single ST–TT.
  • Examination of the function: Function-oriented DTS is an analysis of a sociocultural situation. It is more a study of a context than the text.
  • Examination of the process: Process-oriented DTS focuses on understanding what happened in the mind of the translator.
• Theoretical translation studies: These involve the general rules and principles to explain the phenomenon of translation.
  • General: Find the relevant elements for translation.
  • Partial:
    • Medium-restricted theories: Subdivide translation into human/machine. Human translation can be written or spoken, and humans also use interpretation. Machine translation is supported by a computer program.
    • Area-restricted theories: Some translations are restricted to specific languages or groups of cultures.
    • Rank-restricted theories: Some languages are restricted to a specific level of language (word/sentence).
    • Text-type restricted theories: Consider the type or genres (literary, business, and technical translation).
    • Time-restricted theories: According to specific times (e.g., translating a text about the 1960s/1970s).
• Applied: Translator training methods, testing techniques, translation aids such as dictionaries, grammars, and information technology, and translation criticism for the evaluation of translation.

Holmes points out that the theoretical, descriptive, and applied areas do influence one another. The main merit of the divisions is that they allow a clarification and division of labor between the various areas of translation.

Chapter two: Translation theory before the twentieth century

This chapter describes some of the major issues discussed up to the middle of the twentieth century. First of all, we discuss the difference between “word-for-word translation” (Cicero) and “sense-for-sense translation” (St Jerome). In Roman times, word-for-word translation was exactly what it said, replacing each individual word of the source text (Greek) with its equivalent in Latin. St Jerome, one of the most important translators, disparaged word-for-word translation because it cloaked the sense of the original. The sense-for-sense translation allowed the sense or content of the source language to be translated.

We encounter similar translation issues in the Arab world, where in Baghdad, the great center of translation was created. It translated from Arabic to Greek, preferring sense-for-sense translation.

Martin Luther: With Luther, we enter a significant area of translation because, during this period, the Church was concerned with adding the correct sense to the words of the Bible or Testaments (new and old). St Jerome and Martin Luther were translators for these challenging assignments. M. Luther had been criticized by the Church for adding the word “allein” (alone/only) because there was no equivalent Latin word. Luther followed St Jerome in rejecting the word-for-word translation strategy. In this type of text (religion), the paramount concern was the concept.

Flora Amos: She notes that early translators often differed considerably in the meaning they gave to words like “faithfulness,” “accuracy,” and even “translation” itself. She introduced the concept of “truth” and “spirit” in the area of translation.

Dryden: For Dryden, there exist three categories of translation:

• Metaphrase: Word-for-word literal translation.
• Paraphrase: Sense-for-sense translation (when we change a word or phrase with the same meaning).
• Imitation: Free translation.

Dolet: He set out five principles:

• The translator must understand the sense and the material of the original author.
• The translator should have a perfect knowledge of both SL and TL.
• The translator should avoid word-for-word rendering.
• The translator should avoid unusual forms.
• The translator should avoid clumsiness.

Tytler: Tytler has three general “rules” and “laws”:

• The translator should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work.
• The style of writing should match the original.
• The translation should have the same characteristics as the original.

Schleimermacher: We have 2 different types of text:

• Commercial text
• Scholarly and artistic text

Chapter three: Equivalence and equivalent effect

Roman Jakobson was perhaps the first to talk about equivalence in his work “The Nature of Linguistic Meaning and Equivalence.” We could say that translation is a game to equivalence because a word in the source language corresponds to a word (with the same sense) in the target language. However, translation is more complicated. Jakobson follows the idea (Saussure) that the signifier and the signified together form the linguistic sign, but the sign is arbitrary. For the message to be “equivalent” in source and target language, the code units will be different since they belong to two different sign systems (languages) which partition reality differently. Example: House is feminine in Romance languages and neuter in German.

Nida: He is linked to the theory of “generative transformational grammar” by Chomsky. The most important idea of Nida is that a word has no meaning without the context. Nida discarded the old terms such as “literal or free translation” or “faithful translation” in favor of two basic orientations or types of equivalence: formal and dynamic equivalence.

• Formal equivalence: Focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content.
• Dynamic equivalence: Is based on what Nida calls “the principle of equivalent effect,” where the relationship between receptor and message should be the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message. The message has to be tailored to the receptor’s linguistic needs and cultural expectations and aims at complete naturalness (the closest natural equivalent to the source language message) of expression.

Chomsky: The most basic structures are kernel sentences, which are simple, active, declarative sentences.