Theory of translation

Theory of Translation

1.    TRANSLATION THEORY: OBJECT AND OBJECTIVES  

     Translation is a means of interlingual communication. The translator makes possible an exchange of information between the users of different languages by producing in the target language (TL or the translating language) a text which has an identical communicative value with the source (or original) text (ST). This target text (TT, that is the translation) is not fully identical with ST as to its form or content due to the limitations imposed by the formal and semantic differences between the source language (SL) and TL. Nevertheless the users of TT identify it, to all intents and purposes, with ST - functionally, structurally and semantically.

     The functional status of a translation is supported by its structural and semantic similarity with the original. The translator is expected to refrain from any remarks or intrusions in his text which may betray his authorship thereof. He is expected to efface himself as fully as he can to avoid interference with the process of communication between S and TR.

     The structure of the translation should follow that of the original text: there should be no change in the sequence of narration or in the arrangement of the segments of the text.

     The aim is maximum parallelism of structure which would make it possible to relate each segment of the translation to the respective part of the original. It is presumed that any breach of parallelism is not arbitrary but dictated by the need for precision in conveying the meaning of the original. The translator is allowed to resort to a description or interpretation, only in case “direct translation” is impossible. Similarity in structure is preserved in respect to the smallest segments of the text.

     Of major importance is the semantic identification of the translation with ST. It is presumed that the translation has the same meaning as the original text. No exchange of information is possible. The presumption of semantic identity between ST and TT is based on the various degrees of equivalence of their meanings. The translator usually tries to produce in TL the closest possible equivalent to ST.

     As a kind of practical activities translation (or the practice of translation) is a set of actions performed by the translator while rendering ST into another language. At its best translation is an art, a creation of a talented, high-skilled professional.

     Translation can be the object of scientific study aimed at understanding its nature, its components and their interaction as well as various factors influencing it or linked with it in a meaningful way. The science of translation or translatology is concerned both with theoretical and applied aspects of translation studies. A theoretical description of the translation phenomenon is the task of the theory of translation.

     The linguistic theory of translation is concerned with translation as a form of speech communication establishing contact between communicants who speak different languages. The basis of this theory is linguistics in the broadest sense of the word, that is, macrolinguistics with all its new branches, such as psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, text linguistics, communicative linguistics, etc.

     The core of the translation theory is the general theory of translation which is concerned with the fundamental aspects of translation inherent in the nature of bilingual communication and therefore common to all translation events, irrespective of what languages are involved or what kind of text and under what circumstances was translated.

     An important part of the general theory of translation is the theory of equivalence aimed at studying semantic relationships between ST and TT. It has been noted that there is a presumption of semantic identity between the translation and its source text.  Let us take an elementary example. Suppose we have an English sentence ‘The student is reading a book”. Its Russian translation will be «Студентчитает книгу». This translation is a good equivalent of the English sentence, but it is not identical in meaning. It can be pointed out, for example, that the Russian sentence leaves out the meaning of the articles as well as the specific meaning of the Continuous Tense. In Russian we do not get explicit information that it is some definite student but not some particular book or that the reading is in progress at the moment of speech. On the other hand, the Russian sentence conveys some additional information which is absent in the source text. We learn from it that the student is a male, while in ST it may just as well be a female. Then the translation implies that the student in the case is a college undergraduate, while in ST he may be a high school student or even a scholar, to say nothing of the additional grammatical meaning conveyed by the grammatical aspect of «читает», the gender of «книга» and so on. Part of this information, lost or added in the translating process, may be irrelevant for communication, another part is supplemented or neutralized by the contextual situation, but it is obvious that translation equivalence does not imply an absolute semantic identity of the two texts. The theory of equivalence is concerned with factors which prevent such an identity, it strives to discover how close ST and TT can be and how close they are in each particular case.

     The general theory of translation describes the basic principles which bold good for each and every translation event. In each particular case, however, the translating process is influenced both by the common basic factors and by a number of specific variables which stem from the actual conditions and modes of the translator’s work: the type of original texts, in which ST is presented to him and the form in which he is supposed to submit his translation, the specific requirements he may be called upon to meet in his work, etc.

     The translator has to deal with works of the great authors of the past and of the leading authors of today, with intricacies of science fiction and the accepted stereotypes of detective stories, must be able to cope with the elegancy of expression of the best masters of literary style and with the tricks and formalistic experiments of modern avant-gardists.

     His duty is to translate diplomatic representations and policy statements, scientific dissertations and brilliant satires, maintenance instructions and after-dinner speeches, etc.

     Translating a play the translator must bear in mind the requirements of theatrical presentation, and dubbing a film he must see to it that his translation fits the movement of the speakers’ lips.

     In simultaneous interpretation the translator is expected to keep pace with the fastest speakers, to understand all kinds of foreign accents and defective pronunciation, to guess what the speaker meant to say but failed to express due to his inadequate proficiency in the language he speaks.

     In consecutive interpretation he is expected to listen to long speeches, taking the necessary notes, and then to produce his translation in full or compressed form, giving all the details or only the main ideas.

     In some cases the users will be satisfied even with the most general idea of the meaning of the original, in other cases the translator may be taken to task for the slightest omission or minor error.

     Each type of translation has its own combination of factors influencing the translating process. The general theory of translation should be supplemented by a number of special translation theories identifying major types of translation activities and describing the predominant features of each type.

     Another important branch of the theory of translation is concerned with the study of ST and TT units which can replace each other in the translating process. A bilingual theory of translation should study two separate sets of equivalents, with either language considered, in turn, as SL and the other as TL.

     Of particular interest is that branch of the theory of translation which is concerned with the translating process itself, that is, with the operations required for passing over from ST to TT. It is a great challenge to the translation theory to discover how the translator does the trick, what are his mental processes which ensure production in TL of a text of identical communicative value with the given ST.

     The study of the translating process reveals both the translator’s general strategy and specific techniques used to solve typical translation problems.

     In conclusion, mention should be made of one more branch of the theory of translation which deals with the pragmatic aspects of the translating process. The communicants involved in interlingual communication speak different languages but they also belong to different cultures, have different general knowledge, different social and historical background.

     The translator has to assess the possible communicative effect of TT and take pains to ensure an adequate understanding of its message by TR. This may necessitate expanding or modifying the original message to make it more meaningful to the members of a different language community.

     In some cases the pragmatic value of translation is the major factor in assessing the quality of the translator’s performance.  All branches of the theory of translation are concerned with important aspects of the translator’s work and constitute a body of theoretical thought of indisputable practical value. 

2.    EQUIVALENCE IN TRANSLATION  

     Translation equivalence is defined as a measure of semantic similarity between ST and TT.

     If we compare a number of TTs with their STs we shall discover that the degree of semantic similarity between the two texts involved in the translating process may vary. In other words the equivalence between ST and TT may be based on the reproduction of different parts of the ST contents. Accordingly, several types of translation equivalence can be distinguished.

     Let us first of all single out translations in which the degree of semantic similarity with ST seems to be the lowest. This type of equivalence can be illustrated by the following examples (cited from the published translations):

     (1) Maybe there is some chemistry between us that doesn’t mix.Бывает, что люди не сходятся характерами. – Este ceva la mijloc/ce nu merge.

     (2) A rolling stone gathers no moss. - Кому дома не сидится, тот добра не наживет./ Piatra ce se rostogoleşte nimic (nu) dobîndeşte.

     (3) That’s a pretty thing to say. - Постыдился бы!/ Îi uşir de spus/ Ruşine să-ţi fie !

     Неге we cannot discover any common seems or invariant structures in the original and its translation. An absolute dissimilarity of language units is accompanied by the absence of obvious logical link between the two messages which could lead to the conclusion that they arc “about the same thing”, Le. that they describe one and the same situation. Yet, it is evident that the two sentences have something in common as to their meaning. This common part of their contents is obviously of great importance, since it is enough to ensure an adequate communication.

     It comprises the information which must be preserved by all means even though the greater part of the contents of the original is lost in the translation.

     In plain English, the translation does not convey either “what the original text is about”, or what is said in it” or “how it is said”, but only “what it is said for”, i.e. what the Source meant, what the aim of the message is.

     This part of the contents which contains information about the general intent of the message, its orientation towards a certain communicative effect can be called “the purport of communication”.Thus we can deduce that in the first type of equivalence it is only the purport of communication that is retained in translation.

     The second group of translations can be illustrated by the following examples:

    -         He answered the telephone. -Он снял трубку./ El a luat receptorul.

-         You see one bear, you have seen them all.-Все медведипохожи друг на друга./ noaptea toate pisicile sunt negre.

    -         It was late in the day. - Близился вечер./ Se întunecă spre sfîrşitul zilei.

     This group of examples is similar to the first one, as the equivalence of translations here does not involve any parallelism of lexical or structural units. Most of the words or syntactical structures of the original have no direct correspondences in the translation. At the same time it is obvious that there is a greater proximity of contents than in the preceding group.

Consider, for instance, the translations:

-(1) Maybe there is some chemistry between us that doesn’t mix. Бывает, что люди не сходятся характерами.

- (2) Не answered the telephone. Он снял трубку.

     In (I) the things referred to are different, so that there is hardly any logical connection between the two statements. We can draw identical conclusions about the speaker’s sentiments: there is no love lost between him and another person.

     In (2) the incomparable language units in the original and in the translation describe, in fact, the same action, refer to identical reality, as a telephone call cannot be answered unless one picks up the receiver. Both texts give different information about the same, or, as one sometimes says, they express the same idea “using different words”. It is the type of equivalence that can be well explained in terms of the situational theory. We may presume that such phrases describe identical situations but each is presented in a different way. Since in each of the two texts the situation is described in a different way, the common feature is not the method of description but the reference to the situation, the possibility of identifying the situation, no matter how it is described in the text. The information which characterized the second type of equivalence can, therefore, be designated as “identification of the situation“.

     In the next group of translations the part of the contents which is to be retained is still larger. This type of equivalence can be exemplified as follows:

     - Scrubbing makes me bad-tempered. Оть мытья полов у меня настроение портится.

     - London saw a cold winter last year.-В прошлом году зима в Лондоне была холодной./ A fost  o iarnă grea pentru Londra în anul trecut.

     - You are not serious? – Вы  шутите?/ Glumeşti ?? Faci glume?

     The translation contains the same general notions as the original. This means that the translation is a semantic paraphrase of the original, preserving its basic semes and allowing their free reshuffle in the sentence. The common semes are easily discovered in the comparative analysis of the translations of this group. Consider the first of the examples cited. Both in the translation and in the original the situation is described as a “cause-effect” event with a different pattern of identical semes. In the original: A (scrubbing) causes В (I) to have С (temper) characterized by the property D (bad). In the translation: С (temper) belonging to В (I) acquires the property D (bad) because of A (scrubbing).

     The use of the identical notions in the two texts means that the basic structure of the messages they convey remains intact. Here it indicates “what is said in the original”, i.e. what aspect of the described situation is mentioned in the communication.

     We can now say that the third type of equivalence exemplified by the translations of the third group, implies retention in the translation of the three parts of the original contents which we have conventionally designated as the purport of communication, the identification of the situation and the method of its description.

     The fourth group of translations can be illustrated by the following samples:

-  He was never tired of old songs.Старые песни ему никогда не надоедали./

-  I don’t see that I need to convince you. He вижу надобности доказывать это вам./ Nu e nevoie să te conving

- Не was standing with his arms crossed and his bare head bent.Он стоял, сложив руки на груди и опустив непокрытую голову./ El stătea cu mîinele încruucişate şi cu capul plecat.

     In such translations the syntactic structures can be regarded as derived from those in the original through direct or backward transformations. This includes cases when the translation makes use of similar or parallel structures.

     Equivalence imply the retention of the linguistic meaning, i.e. the information fixed in the substantial or structural elements of language as their plane of content. The translation conveys something of the “how-it-is-said in the original”.

     The fourth type of equivalence presupposes retention in the translation of the four meaningful components of the original: the purport of communication, the identification of the situation, the method of its description, and the invariant meaning of the syntactic structures.

     The fifth group of translations can be discovered when we analyse their relationships with the respective originals. Here we find the maximum possible semantic similarity between texts in different languages. These translations try to retain the meaning of all the words used in the original text. There is considerable semantic proximity of the correlated words in the two sentences:

-   I saw him at the theatre.-Я видел его в театре./ L-am văzut la teatru.

-  The house was sold for 10 thousand dollars.- Дом был продан за десять тысяч долларов./ Casa s-a vîndut cu 10 000 de dolari.

-  The Organisation is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.-Организация основана напринципе суверенного равенства всех ее членов./Organizaţia se bazează pe egalitatea suzerană a tuturor membrilor săi.