INTRODUCING TRANSLATION STUDIES

Translation studies is the academic discipline related to the study of the theory and the

phenomena of translation. We know this discipline as translation studies thanks to the scholar

James Holmes. Translation today has several meanings: 1. The general subject field or

phenomenon; 2. The product, which is the text; 3. The process of producing the

translation=translating. This process involves the changing of an original written text in an

original language, into a written text in a different language, this type is called ‘interlingual

translation’, and it is one of the three translation categories described by Roman Jakobson.

These categories:

1. Intralingual translation, interpretation, is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of

other signs of the same language.

2. Interlingual translation, translation proper, is an interpretation of verbal signs by

means of signs of some other languages. It is the focus of translation studies.

3. Intersemiotic translation, transmutation, is an interpretation of verbal signs through

signs of non-verbal sign systems.

THE HOLMES/TOURY MAP.

He drew attention to the limitation of the old studies about translation studies and put forward

an overall framework describing what translation covers. Translation is divided into two main

branches: pure and applied. The pure area is divided into: -descriptive and -theoretical

translation. The Descriptive Branch describes the phenomena of translation, is known as

Descriptive translation studies and may examine the product, the function, and the process.

1. Product oriented DTS: examines existing translation.

2. Function-oriented DTS: describes the function of translation in the recipient

sociocultural situation. It is a study of context rather than the texts.

3. Process-oriented DTS: concerns with the psychology of translation, it find out what

happens in the mind of a translator.

The Theoretical branch is divided into general and partial theories.

By GENERAL he refers to those writings that seek to describe or account for every

type of translation and to make generalizations.

PARTIAL RT are restricted according to some parameters:

MEDIUM-RT theories: subdivide according to translation by machine and humans.

AREA-RT: are restricted to specific languages or groups of language and culture.

RANK RT: are linguistic theories that have been restricted to a level of the word or

sentence.

TEXT-TYPE: look at discourse types and genres. (Reiss and Vermeer)

TIME: concern translation limited according to a specific time frames and periods.

PROBLEM: refers to certain problems, such as equivalence.

The Applied Branch concerns applications to the practice of translation:

- Translator training; -translation aids; - translation criticism.

CHAPTER 2. DRYDEN; DOLET; TYTLER.

Dryden gave a description of the translation process reducing all translation to three

categories:

1. Metaphrase: literal translation, W4W. 2.Paraphrase: changing phrases, S4S.

3. Imitation: adaption. He preferred Paraphrase.

After Dryden, the first systematic study of translation is That of Alexander Tytler, who gave

three general laws: 1. The translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the

original work.

2.The style and manner of writing should be the same of the original. 3. The translation should

have all the ease of the original composition.

SCHLEIMACHER and the valorization of the foreign: in his essay he distinguished two

different types of translators: 1. The Dolmetscher: who translates commercial texts. 2. The

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INTRODUCING TRANSLATION STUDIES

Translation studies is the academic discipline related to the study of the theory and the phenomena of translation. We know this discipline as translation studies thanks to the scholar James Holmes. Translation today has several meanings: 1. The general subject field or phenomenon; 2. The product, which is the text; 3. The process of producing the translation=translating. This process involves the changing of an original written text in an original language, into a written text in a different language, this type is called ‘interlingual translation’, and it is one of the three translation categories described by Roman Jakobson. These categories:

Intralingual translation , interpretation, is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language.
Interlingual translation , translation proper, is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of some other languages. It is the focus of translation studies.
Intersemiotic translation , transmutation, is an interpretation of verbal signs through signs of non-verbal sign systems. THE HOLMES/TOURY MAP. He drew attention to the limitation of the old studies about translation studies and put forward an overall framework describing what translation covers. Translation is divided into two main branches: pure and applied. The pure area is divided into: -descriptive and -theoretical translation. The Descriptive Branch describes the phenomena of translation, is known as Descriptive translation studies and may examine the product, the function, and the process.
Product oriented DTS: examines existing translation.
Function-oriented DTS: describes the function of translation in the recipient sociocultural situation. It is a study of context rather than the texts.
Process-oriented DTS: concerns with the psychology of translation, it find out what happens in the mind of a translator. The Theoretical branch is divided into general and partial theories.  By GENERAL he refers to those writings that seek to describe or account for every type of translation and to make generalizations. PARTIAL RT are restricted according to some parameters:  MEDIUM-RT theories: subdivide according to translation by machine and humans.  AREA-RT: are restricted to specific languages or groups of language and culture.  RANK RT: are linguistic theories that have been restricted to a level of the word or sentence.  TEXT-TYPE: look at discourse types and genres. (Reiss and Vermeer)  TIME: concern translation limited according to a specific time frames and periods.  PROBLEM: refers to certain problems, such as equivalence. The Applied Branch concerns applications to the practice of translation:

Translator training; -translation aids; - translation criticism. CHAPTER 2. DRYDEN; DOLET; TYTLER. Dryden gave a description of the translation process reducing all translation to three categories: 1. Metaphrase : literal translation, W4W. 2. Paraphrase: changing phrases, S4S. 3. Imitation: adaption. He preferred Paraphrase. After Dryden, the first systematic study of translation is That of Alexander Tytler, who gave three general laws: 1. The translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work. 2.The style and manner of writing should be the same of the original. 3. The translation should have all the ease of the original composition. SCHLEIMACHER and the valorization of the foreign: in his essay he distinguished two different types of translators: 1. The Dolmetscher: who translates commercial texts. 2. The

Ubersetzer: who works on scholarly and artistic texts. He preferred to bring the reader to the author, leaving the writer alone as much as possible, by adopting an ‘alienating’ method of translation. The consequences to this approach are many, including: the level of education and understanding of the translator and the adoption of a special language of translation. CHAPTER 3: EQUIVALENCE AND EQUIVALENT EFFECT. -ROMAN JAKOBSON: considers the thorny problem of EQUIVALENCE IN MEANING between words in different languages. He claims that, in the case of intralingual translation, the translator makes use of synonyms in order to get the ST message across. This means that there is no full equivalence. For him the problem of meaning and equivalence focuses on inability of one language to render a message that has been written in another verbal language. For him cross-linguistic difference centre around obligatory grammatical lexical forms, for e.g.: -the level of gender, -the level of aspects; - the level of semantic fields. In conclusion we can say that his theory is based on his semiotic approach to translation according to which the translator has to recode the ST and then s/he has to transmit it into an equivalent message for the TC.

Intralingual Translation: everything can be transferred in any existent language. Whenever there is not a complete equivalent on the level of meaning, of words, of code units, there is always a way to fill that linguistic and cultural gap. We can introduce lone words, BORROWING, lone translation, neologism, SEMANTIC SHIFTS. So, we can rephrase. The level of literal translation it’s a problem, but nevertheless we can use our linguistic repertoire to transfer the meaning. Impossible equivalence is impossible only if we look for it at the level of the code unit, words, grammatical structure. On one hand we can rephrase, in the other we can go creative (as for poetry).

NIDA: meaning is broken down to LINGUISTIC MEANING , REFERENTIAL MEANING and EMOTIVE MEANING. 1. Techniques to determine referential or emotive meaning focus on analyzing the structure of words , including hierarchical structuring which differentiates series of words according to their level of componential analysis. 2. Another technique is semantic structure analysis in which Nida separates out visually the different meanings of the word spirit according to their characteristics. The idea of technique is to encourage the translator to realize that the sense of a complex semantic term varies and is conditioned by its context. Nida was also incorporating some characteristics by Chomsky’s work; he provides the translator with a technique for decoding ST and encoding the TT. In particular he took Kernel: basic structural elements out of which language builds its surface structures. Nida and Taber claim that all language have between six and a dozen basic kernel structures. But the most important point is related to the concept of equivalence. Nida argued that there are two different types of equivalence, namely FORMAL CORRESPONDENCE which focuses attention on the message itself ; and DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCE, is based on the principle of equivalent effect, where the relationship between receptor and the message should be the same of that between the original message and its receptor. Nida is in favor of the application of dynamic equivalence, as a more effective translation procedure. Despite using a linguistic approach to translation, Nida is much more interested in the message of the text or, in other words, in its semantic quality. He therefore strives to make sure that this message remains clear in the target text. KOLLER: KORRESPONDENZ AND AQUIVALENZ. He links the concept of EQUIVALENCE with its linked term of CORRESPONDENCE. He also differentiates 5 TYPES OF EQUIVALENCE RELATIONS:
1. DENOTATIVE E: related to equivalence of the extralinguistic content.
2. CONNOTATIVE E: related to lexical choices.
3. TEXT-NORMATIVE E: related to text types.
4. PRAGMATIC EQUIVALENCE: oriented towards the receiver of the text or message. (Nida’s dynamic equivalence).

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:

The extent of translation ( full translation vs partial translation );
The grammatical rank at which the translation equivalence is established ( rank-bound translation vs. unbounded translation );
The levels of language involved in translation ( total translation vs. restricted translation ). We will refer only to the second type of translation, since this is the one that concerns the concept of equivalence, and we will then move on to analyze the notion of translation shifts, as elaborated by Catford, which are based on the distinction between formal correspondence and textual equivalence. In rank-bound translation an equivalent is sought in the TL for each word, or for each morpheme encountered in the ST. In unbounded translation equivalences are not tied to a particular rank, and we may additionally find equivalences at sentence, clause and other levels. Catford finds five of these ranks or levels in both English and French, while in the Caucasian language Kabardian there are apparently only four. Thus, a formal correspondence could be said to exist between English and French if relations between ranks have approximately the same configuration in both languages, as Catford claims they do. One of the problems with formal correspondence is that, despite being a useful tool to employ in comparative linguistics, it seems that it is not really relevant in terms of assessing translation equivalence between ST and TT. For this reason we now turn to Catford's other dimension of correspondence, namely textual equivalence which occurs when any TL text or portion of text is 'observed on a particular occasion ... to be the equivalent of a given SL text or portion of text' (ibid.:27). He implements this by a process of commutation, whereby 'a competent bilingual informant or translator' is consulted on the translation of various sentences whose ST items are changed in order to observe 'what changes if any occur in the TL text as a consequence' (ibid.:28). As far as translation shifts are concerned, Catford defines them as 'departures from formal correspondence in the process of going from the SL to the TL' (ibid.:73). Catford argues that there are two main types of translation shifts, namely level shifts, where the SL item at one linguistic level (e.g. grammar) has a TL equivalent at a different level (e.g. lexis), and category shifts which are divided into four types:
Structure-shifts, which involve a grammatical change between the structure of the ST and that of the TT;
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;
Unit-shifts , which involve changes in rank;
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' (ibid.:80). For instance, when the SL singular becomes a TL plural. Catford was very much criticized for his linguistic theory of translation. One of the most scathing criticisms came from Snell-Hornby (1988), who argued that Catford's definition of textual equivalence is 'circular', his theory's reliance on bilingual informants 'hopelessly inadequate', and his example sentences 'isolated and even absurdly simplistic' (ibid.:19-20). She considers the concept of equivalence in translation as being an illusion. She asserts that the translation process cannot simply be reduced to a linguistic exercise, as claimed by

Catford for instance, since there are also other factors, such as textual, cultural and situational aspects, which should be taken into consideration when translating. In other words, she does not believe that linguistics is the only discipline which enables people to carry out a translation, since translating involves different cultures and different situations at the same time and they do not always match from one language to another. 1.5 House and the elaboration of overt and covert translation House (1977) is in favour of semantic and pragmatic equivalence and argues that ST and TT should match one another in function. House suggests that it is possible to characterize the function of a text by determining the situational dimensions of the ST.*In fact, according to her theory, every text is in itself is placed within a particular situation which has to be correctly identified and taken into account by the translator. After the ST analysis, House is in a position to evaluate a translation; if the ST and the TT differ substantially on situational features, then they are not functionally equivalent, and the translation is not of a high quality. In fact, she acknowledges that 'a translation text should not only match its source text in function but employ equivalent situational-dimensional means to achieve that function' (ibid.:49). Central to House's discussion is the concept of overt and covert translations. In an overt translation the TT audience is not directly addressed and there is therefore no need at all to attempt to recreate a 'second original' since an overt translation 'must overtly be a translation' (ibid.:189). By covert translation, on the other hand, is meant the production of a text which is functionally equivalent to the ST. House also argues that in this type of translation the ST 'is not specifically addressed to a TC audience' (ibid.:194). House (ibid.:203) sets out the types of ST that would probably yield translations of the two categories. An academic article, for instance, is unlikely to exhibit any features specific to the SC; the article has the same argumentative or expository force that it would if it had originated in the TL, and the fact that it is a translation at all need not be made known to the readers. A political speech in the SC, on the other hand, is addressed to a particular cultural or national group which the speaker sets out to move to action or otherwise influence, whereas the TT merely informs outsiders what the speaker is saying to his or her constituency. It is clear that in this latter case, which is an instance of overt translation, functional equivalence cannot be maintained, and it is therefore intended that the ST and the TT function differently. House's theory of equivalence in translation seems to be much more flexible than Catford's. In fact, she gives authentic examples, uses complete texts and, more importantly, she relates linguistic features to the context of both source and target text. 1.6 Baker's approach to translation equivalence An extremely interesting discussion of the notion of equivalence can be found in Baker (1992) who seems to offer a more detailed list of conditions upon which the concept of equivalence can be defined. She explores the notion of equivalence at different levels, in relation to the translation process, including all different aspects of translation and hence putting together the linguistic and the communicative approach. She distinguishes between:  Equivalence that can appear at word level and above word level , when translating from one language into another. Baker acknowledges that, in a bottom-up approach to translation, equivalence at word level is the first element to be taken into consideration by the translator. In fact, when the translator starts analyzing the ST s/he looks at the words as single units in order to find a direct 'equivalent' term in the TL_._ This means that the translator should pay attention to a number of factors when considering a single word, such as number, gender and tense (ibid.:11-12).  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. In fact, she claims that different grammatical structures in

Introducing Translation Studies-Jeremy Munday, Sintesi del corso di Linguistica Inglese

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INTRODUCING TRANSLATION STUDIES