One widely-accepted list of translation techniques is outlined briefly below.
This means taking words straight into another language. Borrowed terms often pass into general usage, for example in the fields of technology ("software") and culture ("punk"). Borrowing can be for different reasons, with the examples below being taken from usage rather than translated texts:
The target language has no (generally used) equivalent. For example, the first man-made satellites were Soviet, so for a time they were known in English as "sputniks".
The source language word sounds "better" (more specific, fashionable, exotic or just accepted), even though it can be translated. For example, Spanish IT is full or terms like "soft [ware]", and Spanish accountants talk of "overheads", even though these terms can be translated into Spanish.
to retain some "feel" of the source language. For example, from a recent issue of The Guardian newspaper: "Madrileños are surprisingly unworldly."
This is a literal translation at phrase level. Sometimes calques work, sometimes they don't. You often see them in specialized, internationalized fields such as quality assurance (aseguramiento de calidad, assurance qualité, Qualitätssicherung...).
3. Literal Translation
Just what it says - "El equipo está trabajando para acabar el informe" - "The team is working to finish the report". Again, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. For example, the Spanish sentence above could not be translated into French or German in the same way - you would have to use technique no. 4...
This is the mechanical process whereby parts of speech "play musical chairs" (Fawcett's analogy) when they are translated. Grammatical structures are not often identical in different languages. "She likes swimming" translates as "Le gusta nadar" (not "nadando") - or in German, "Sie schwimmt gern", because gerunds and infinitives work in different ways in English and Spanish, and German is German (bringing in an adverb to complicate matters). Transposition is often used between English and Spanish because of the preferred position of the verb in the sentence: English wants the verb up near the front; Spanish can have it closer to the end.
Now we're getting clever. Slightly more abstract than transposition, this consists of using a phrase that is different in the source and target languages to convey the same idea - "Te lo dejo" - "You can have it".
6. Reformulation (sometimes known as équivalence)
Here you have to express something in a completely different way, for example when translating idioms or, even harder, advertising slogans. The process is creative, but not always easy. Would you have given the name Sonrisas y lágrimas to the film The Sound of Music in Spanish?
Here something specific to the source language culture is expressed in a totally different way that is familiar or appropriate to the target language culture. Sometimes it is valid, and sometimes it is problematic, to say the least. Should a restaurant menu in a Spanish tourist resort translate "pincho" as "kebab" in English? Should a French text talking about Belgian jokes be translated into English as talking about Irish jokes (always assuming it should be translated at all)? We will return to these problems of referentiality below.
Another model describes a technique known as compensation. This is a rather amorphous term, but in general terms it can be used where something cannot be translated from source to target language, and the meaning that is lost in the immediate translation is expressed somewhere else in the TT. Fawcett defines it as: "...making good in one part of the text something that could not be translated in another". One example given by Fawcett is the problem of translating nuances of formality from languages which use forms such as tu and usted (tu/vous, du/Sie, etc.) into English which only has 'you', and expresses degrees of formality in different ways. If you want to read more, look at Fawcett 1997:31-33.
English Speaking Practice Through Presentations
By Josef Essberger,
If you're anything like most teachers, you're probably constantly looking for new ways to encourage your students to practise their oral English and speak spontaneously. This month, we're going to consider the value of the 'presentation' in achieving this.
Asking students to give presentations has the following advantages:
it gives the presenting student a good opportunity to practise unaided speaking
it gives the other students good listening practice
it increases the presenting student's confidence when using English
it can be good practice for the real situation for those students who may actually need to give presentations in English in their professional lives
it is an excellent generator of spontaneous discussion
Translator Prerequisites and the A-Z of becoming a Translator
By John Neilan,
If you are serious about becoming a translator, you must be able to fulfil the following criteria, at the very least.
Your standard of education must be very high; with very few exceptions, a degree is essential, though not necessarily in languages - it is a positive advantage to have qualifications or experience in another subject. Postgraduate training in translation is useful. You must be able to write your own mother tongue impeccably in a style and register appropriate to the subject and have a flair for research on technical subjects.
It goes without saying, that you should have a thorough grasp of the languages in your language combination, you must also be familiar with the culture and customs of the country. The only way to do this is by surrounding yourself with the language, i.e: by living/studying in the country where the language is spoken. German is spoken in 5 countries: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg. There is no substitute for first-hand experience of living in a foreign culture, and as an Irishman living in Berlin, Germany, I can only recommend this course of action.
It is best to have a specific field that you specialise in, be it literature, technical, medical, legal.
There are a number of ways for translators to invoice their clients. We can either invoice by the number of source or target words, the number of source or target characters, or by the amount of hours that we spend on a certain task. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages, but each method also has room for improvement. Look for tips for counting words and characters in the "Upgrade Your Tools" section, and read on right here for a couple of hints on how to make it easier to clock the amount of time you spend.
The most common way to log the time that we spend on an individual task is probably in an Excel spreadsheet. A few things that have made it easier for me to keep track of my time are two keyboard shortcuts:
- CTRL+; to enter the current date and
- CTRL+SHIFT+: to enter the current time.
A preconfigured spreadsheet with rows of fields for client, date, start time, end time, and rate requires the entry of relatively little information. If you then add fields such as total time (formula: =SUM(
While it is possible to record your time in this manner, there are little programs out there that make this a lot easier. Time Stamp (see http://www.syntap.com) is a free program (supported by optional donations) which allows you to track the start and end time for projects you are currently working on with a click on a button in your task bar. It is even possible to have several instances of the program running simultaneously so you can switch back and forth between different projects that you may be working on. Once you are completely done, all the time that is spent on each project is summed up and can either be printed out or saved as a text file. This is a nifty little program that requires neither a lot of computer resources nor a lot of time to learn.
Machine translation and human translation: in competition or in complementation
By John Hutchins
Ever since the idea of using computers to translate natural languages was first proposed in the 1940s and since the first investigations were begun in the 1950s, translators have watched developments either in scorn or in trepidation. Either they have dismissed the very notion that anyone could even believe that translation could be mechanized, or (at the other extreme) they have feared that their profession would be taken over entirely by machines.
The first of these attitudes found expression as early as 1951 in a report for Unesco by J.E.Holmström. He believed that from a machine translation (MT) system, “the resulting literary style would be atrocious and fuller of ‘howlers’ and false values than the worst that any human translator produces”. The reason was that “translation is an art; something which at every step involves personal choice between uncodifiable alternatives; not merely direct substitutions of equated sets of symbols but choices of values dependent for their soundness on the whole antecedent education and personality of the translator” (Holmström 1951). His comments preceded by three years the first tentative demonstration of a small prototype system, and were based on pure speculation. Nevertheless, such comments have been repeated again and again by translators for nearly fifty years, and no doubt they shall be heard again in the next fifty.
The second attitude has also persisted to the present day. However, there is now no doubt that computer-based translation systems are not rivals to human translators, but
they are aids to enable them to increase productivity in technical translation or they provide means of translating material which no human translator has ever attempted. In this context we must distinguish (1) machine translation (MT), which aims to undertake the whole translation process, but whose output must invariably be revised; (2) computer aids for translators (translation tools), which support the professional translator; and (3) translation systems for the ‘occasional’ non-translator user, which produce only rough versions to aid comprehension. These differences were not recognised until the late 1980s. The previous assumption had been that MT systems, whether running on a mainframe or a microcomputer, could serve all these functions with greater or lesser success. In part, this failure to identify different needs and to design systems specifically to meet them has contributed to misconceptions about translation technology and its impact for the professional translator.
Win Key / Ctrl+Esc
|Close the current window or quit a program (if no windows are active it brings up the "Shut Down" dialog box).||Alt+F4|
|Display the Close Program (task manager) dialog box||Ctrl + Alt + Del (pressing these keys a second time will re-boot the computer)|
|Display the Find File dialog box||Win + F or F3|
|Copy a screen-shot to the clipboard||Print Screen|
|Show item properties||Alt+Enter|
|Switch to the window you last used or
Switch to another window by holding down Alt while repeatedly pressing Tab
|Close a My Computer window and all its parrent windows||Shift (while clicking the "X", Close button)|
|Cancel the current task||Esc|
|Quit a program that is not responding (in the Close Program dialog box, click the program that is not responding, and then click End Task)||Ctrl+Alt+Del|
|Bypass Auto run when inserting a CD||Shift|
|Right-click (make sure the desired object has the focus)||Shift+F10 or application key (usually the third key on the right from the space bar with a menu and pointer icon)|
|Permanently delete (bypassing Recycle Bin)||Shift+Delete|
|Click a button if the current control is a button or
Select or clear the check box if the current control is a check box or
Click the option if the current control is an option button
|Click the corresponding command||Alt+underlined letter|
|Click the selected button||Enter|
|Move backward through options||Shift+Tab|
|Move forward through options||Tab|
|Move backward through tabs||Ctrl+Shift+Tab|
|Move forward through tabs||Ctrl+Tab|
|Open a folder one level up if a folder is selected in the Save As or Open dialog box||Backspace|
|Rename an item||F2|
|Open Save In or Look In in the Save As or Open dialog box||F4|
|Refresh or Save As or Open dialog box||F5|
|Create a shortcut||Ctrl+Shift while dragging the file|
|Select all items||Ctrl+A|
|Launch Windows Explorer||Win+E|
A LIST OF WORD SHORTCUTS
Vocabulary Building and Reading Comprehension
The meaning of unknown words which you come across in your reading sometimes can be known by their surroundings, that is, their contexts. The context of the sentence can tell us the part of speech of the unknown word. Using the context of the paragraph to define unknown words can also helpful.
Although it takes practice, it is the easiest and most efficient way to identify words. Often, using the context is the only way to figure out the meaning of the word as it is used in the sentence, passage, or chapter.
Consider the word "bar". Bar is a common word. But without surrounding words, you don't know if it describes soap, a place that serves beer, a sand formation at the beach, a way to lock the door, or...
Readers often have trouble because they identify the literal but incorrect meaning of a word when they should identify the way it was used in the passage. The following sections will give you more explanation and some exercises on how to get help on the meaning of unknown words by checking their part of speech and their place in context.
A. Using The Part of Speech of the unknown word as a help in reading.
One consideration in using the context is to determine the unknown word's part of speech. The words around the unknown word give you clues. Once you know if the word is a noun or if it is an adjective, it often is enough for you to continue reading intelligently without having to stop to look up the meaning of the word. After coming across the word a few more times, you will know its meaning more firmly than if you had just looked it up.
New adjectives have been assigned to the notion of equivalence (grammatical, textual, pragmatic equivalence, and several others) and made their appearance in the plethora of recent works in this field. 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:
I. 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. Baker gives a definition of the term word since it should be remembered that a single word can sometimes be assigned different meanings in different languages and might be regarded as being a more complex unit or morpheme. 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).
II. 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 the SL and TL may cause remarkable changes in the way the information or message is carried across. These changes may induce the translator either to add or to omit information in the TT because of the lack of particular grammatical devices in the TL itself. Amongst these grammatical devices which might cause problems in translation Baker focuses on number, tense and aspects, voice, person and gender.
III. 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 important feature in translation since it provides useful guidelines for the comprehension and analysis of the ST which can help the translator in his or her attempt to produce a cohesive and coherent text for the TC audience in a specific context. It is up to the translator to decide whether or not to maintain the cohesive ties as well as the coherence of the SL text. His or her decision will be guided by three main factors, that is, the target audience, the purpose of the translation and the text type.
IV. 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. The role of the translator is to recreate the author's intention in another culture in such a way that enables the TC reader to understand it clearly.
House (1977) is in favor 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.
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:
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).
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:
1. Structure-shifts, which involve a grammatical change between the structure of the ST and that of the TT;
2. 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;
3. Unit-shifts, which involve changes in rank;
4. 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.
Formal correspondence and dynamic equivalence
Nida argued that there are two different types of equivalence, namely formal equivalence—which in the second edition by Nida and Taber (1982) is referred to as formal correspondence—and dynamic equivalence. Formal correspondence 'focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content', unlike dynamic equivalence which is based upon 'the principle of equivalent effect' (1964:159). In the second edition (1982) or their work, the two theorists provide a more detailed explanation of each type of equivalence.
Formal correspondence consists of a 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 TT since the translation will not be easily understood by the target audience (Fawcett, 1997). Nida and Taber themselves assert that 'Typically, formal correspondence distorts the grammatical and stylistic patterns of the receptor language, and hence distorts the message, so as to cause the receptor to misunderstand or to labor unduly hard' (ibid.:201).
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' (Nida and Taber, 1982:200).
One can easily see that Nida is in favor of the application of dynamic equivalence, as a more effective translation procedure. This is perfectly understandable if we take into account the context of the situation in which Nida was dealing with the translation phenomenon, that is to say, his translation of the Bible. Thus, the product of the translation process, that is the text in the TL, must have the same impact on the different readers it was addressing. Only in Nida and Taber's edition is it clearly stated that 'dynamic equivalence in translation is far more than mere correct communication of information' (ibid: 25).
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.
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 semiotic approach to language and his aphorism 'there is no signatum without signum' (1959:232), he suggests three kinds of translation:
- Intralingual (within one language, i.e. rewording or paraphrase)
- Interlingual (between two languages)
- Intersemiotic (between sign systems)
Jakobson claims that, in the case of interlingual translation, the translator makes use of synonyms in order to get the ST message across. This means that in interlingual translations there is no full equivalence between code units. According to his theory, 'translation involves two equivalent messages in two different codes' (ibid.233). 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. He acknowledges that 'whenever there is deficiency, terminology may be qualified and amplified by loanwords or loan-translations, neologisms or semantic shifts, and finally, by circumlocutions' (ibid.234). Jakobson provides a number of examples by comparing English and Russian language structures and explains that in such cases where there is no a literal equivalent for a particular ST word or sentence, then it is up to the translator to choose the most suitable way to render it in the TT.
There seems to be some similarity between Vinay and Darbelnet's theory of translation procedures and Jakobson's theory of translation. Both theories stress the fact that, whenever a linguistic approach is no longer suitable to carry out a translation, the translator can rely on other procedures such as loan-translations, neologisms and the like. Both theories recognize the limitations of a linguistic theory and argue that a translation can never be impossible since there are several methods that the translator can choose. The role of the translator as the person who decides how to carry out the translation is emphasized in both theories. Both Vinay and Darbelnet as well as Jakobson conceive the translation task as something which can always be carried out from one language to another, regardless of the cultural or grammatical differences between ST and TT.
It can be concluded that Jakobson's theory is essentially based on his semiotic approach to translation according to which the translator has to recode the ST message first and then s/he has to transmit it into an equivalent message for the TC.
Vinay and Darbelnet view equivalence-oriented translation as a procedure which 'replicates the same situation as in the original, whilst using completely different wording' (ibid: 342). They also suggest that, if this procedure is applied during the translation process, it can maintain the stylistic impact of the SL text in the TL text. According to them, equivalence is therefore the ideal method when the translator has to deal with proverbs, idioms, clichés, nominal or adjectival phrases and 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' (ibid.:255). However, later they note that glossaries and collections of idiomatic expressions 'can never be exhaustive' (ibid.256). They conclude by saying that 'the need for creating equivalences arises from the situation, and it is in the situation of the SL text that translators have to look for a solution' (ibid. 255). 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. They provide a number of examples to prove their theory, and the following expression appears in their list: Take one is a fixed expression which would have as an equivalent French translation Prenez-en un. However, if the expression appeared as a notice next to a basket of free samples in a large store, the translator would have to look for an equivalent term in a similar situation and use the expression Échantillon gratuit (ibid.:256).
- Four T's of Translation Project:
- Text: refers to the SL documents which are to be translated. The translator should examine his reasons for choosing the text and the potential for its use by the TL receptor.
- Target: refers to the audience. The form of the translation will be affected by questions of dialect, educational level, age level, bilingualism and people's attitudes toward their languages.
- Team: refers to the people who will be involved in the project. The team may consist of: a) Co-translators where one is the specialist in the SL and other in TL, b) a translator with capability to handle both SL and TL matters and an advisor or consultant, c) a committee working together with specific responsibilities delegated to each one, d) testers, reviewers and technical people to do typing and proofreading.
- Tools: refers to the written source materials which will be used by the translators as help. These include, in addition to the document to be translated, any dictionaries, lexicons, grammars, cultural descriptions, etc. of both the SL and TL which are available.
- Processes of Translating
- Exegesis: is used to refer to the process of discovering the meaning of the SLT which is to be translated. It is the step which includes the preparation and analysis. The text must be understood completely. This step begins by reading the SLT several times to find the meaning and purpose of the writer. The analysis of the SLT will include resolving ambiguity, identifying implicit information, studying keywords, interpreting figurative senses, etc. The goal of exegesis is to determine the meaning which is to be communicated in the TLT.
- Transfer and initial draft: The translator begins drafting piece by piece keeping his target audience in mind. There are two approaches for this step:
a) Some translators prefer to do a quick rough translation so that the materials flow naturally. Then they go back and tighten up the details to be sure that there is no wrong information. There is no omission or addition.
b) Other prefer to prepare a proposition-like semantic draft, being sure that all the information is accounted for and then reword it for naturalness, that is reword it in the idiomatic form of the TL.
- Evaluation: The purpose of evaluation is threefold:
a) Accuracy: communicating the same meaning as the SL.
b) Clearness: understanding the text clearly by audience.
c) Naturalness: being natural and easy to read in the form of SL grammar and style.
To do evaluation it is advantageous to have a consultant check over the material. It is the best to have someone who has not worked on the translation, but knows both the SL and TL, translate back from the TL to SL without reference to the original SLT.
- Revised draft: those with whom the translator has checked may suggest many rewordings, may have expressed misunderstandings, etc. The translation team now works through this material, honestly accepting the evaluation and rewording the material accordingly. How much the rewording will be needed will vary depending on the results of the evaluation.
- Consultation: Asking a consultant to work through the material with him will give the translator insights which will not only help his final draft of the material being worked on, but also will help him to do better transfer drafts on the sections of the document remaining to be done. The goal of the consultant is to evaluate the quality of the translation as meaning, naturalness and its potential acceptance by the TL audience. He is also interested in training and helping the translator improve and learn to make more adequate translations.
- Final draft: The translator incorporates into the translated text, the suggestions made by the consultant, checks them again with mother-tongue speakers to be sure they are warranted. However before he prepares the final draft, decisions about format, including pictures, size of print, etc. need to be discussed with the whole translation team.
- Motivation: is some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do something in order to achieve something.
- Motivation includes some factors such as:
- The need for exploration
- New knowledge
- Ego enhancement
- Extrinsic Motivation: is caused by any outside factors, for e.g. the need to pass the exam.
- Intrinsic Motivation: comes from within the individual, for e.g. the enjoyment of the learning process itself.
- Sources of Motivation:
- The society we live in
- Significant of others (influence of people who are close to students)
- The teacher: the major factor in the continuance of students' motivation
- Initiating and sustaining motivation:
- Goals and Goal Setting:
Long-term goals may include the mastery of English, for e.g. the passing of an exam at the end of the year.
Short-term goals might be the learning of a small amount of new language. It is much closer to the students' day to day reality.
- Learning Environment:
We can decorate even the most unattractive classrooms with all kinds of visual material to make them more agreeable as learning environment. An attractive classroom at the beginning of a course may help them to get their motivation for the process going.
- Interesting classes:
We need to provide students with a variety of subjects and exercises to keep them engaged. The choice of material to take into class and the ways in which it is used in the lesson is important.
- Deep and Surface Structure
Surface Structure: is the form of the language; the grammatical, lexical and phonological structures of language.
Deep Structure: is the meaning; the semantic structure of the language. The semantic structure is more universal than the grammatical structure. Types of units, the features, and the relationships are essentially the same for all languages.
- Meaning Components: the smallest unit in the semantic structure is meaning component. Meaning components group together to form concepts. Meaning components and concepts are classified into four principle groups:
- Things: include all animate beings, natural and supernatural and all inanimate entities (boy, angel, blood, stone, galaxy, etc.). Generally (with no skewing), nouns and pronouns refer to Things.
- Events: include all actions, processes (changes of state), and experience (eat, run, melt, smile, etc.). Generally (with no skewing), verbs refer to Events.
- Attributes: include all those attributes of quality and quantity ascribed to any Thing or Event (long, soft, thick, slowly, few, all, etc.). Generally (with no skewing), adjectives and adverbs refer to Attributes.
- Relations: include all those relations posited between any two of the above semantic units (because, and, therefore, by, with, etc.). Generally (with no skewing), conjunctions, prepositions, particles, enclitics, etc. refer to Relations.
- Semantic propositions occur in all languages. They consist of concepts related to one another with an Event, Thing or Attribute. The propositions in one language can be encoded in any language with the surface structures of that language.
- In semantic structure the only ordering is chronological. However, this chronological order does not need to match the order of words in the grammatical structure and it is often skewed and different. There is great deal of skewing between the grammar and the semantics. The grammars of languages use various alternatives to express the semantic structure.
- Semantic & Grammatical Hierarchy
Semantic (Deep) Structure
Grammatical (Surface Structure)
Morpheme (roots & affixes)
Complex concept (concept cluster)
- The Communication Situation
The meaning which is chosen will be influenced by the communication situation, e.g. by who the speaker is, who the audience is, the traditions of the culture, etc. The speaker or writer, basing his choices on many factors in the communication situation, chooses what he wishes to communicate. Once he has determined the meaning, he is limited to use the forms of the language in which he wishes to communicate that meaning. He may choose one form to over another in order to give a certain emotive meaning in addition to the information he wishes to contain or because he wishes to make some part more prominent than another, to add some focus to a part of the message.
- Every translator desires to be faithful to the original. To do this, he must communicate not only the same information, but he must also attempt to evoke the same emotional response as the original text. For the translation to have the same dynamics as the original, it will need to be natural and easy to understand so that the readers will find it easy to grasp the message, including both the information and the emotional effect intended by the SL writer.
- Each language has its own idiomatic way of expressing meaning through lexical items (words, phrases, etc.). Languages abound in idioms, secondary meanings, metaphors and other figurative meanings.
- Idiom: is a string of words whose meaning is different than the meaning conveyed by the individual words.
- Figures of speech are often based on stories or historical incidents. Many times, the origin of the figure of speech is no longer apparent.
- Names of animals are used metaphorically in most languages. But the comparison is often different and so the figure will be misunderstood unless some adjustment is made.
- Some lexical combinations of the SL may be ambiguous and the meaning is not clear. In the process of an idiomatic translation, such ambiguities must often be resolved and only the intended meaning communicated.
- Parts of speech are language specific. Each language has its own division of the lexicon into classes such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. It will not always be possible to translate a source language part of speech with the same part of speech in receptor language. For example, pronominal systems vary greatly from language to language and the translator obliged to use the forms the receptor language even though they may have different meanings than the pronouns of the SL.
- Grammatical constructions vary between the SL and the TL. The order may be completely reserved. It is not uncommon that passive construction will need to be translated with an active construction or vice versa, depending on the natural form of the TL.
- Grammatical choices in translation must be based on the function of the grammatical construction in the TL, not on a literal rendition of a SL form.
- Literal Translation: is form-based translation which attempts to follow the form of Source Language. A literal translations sounds like nonsense and has little communication value. Literal translation of words, idioms, figures of speech, etc., result in unclear, unnatural, and sometimes nonsensical translation.
- Interlinear Translation: It is a completely literal translation and it is desirable for some purposes such as reproducing the linguistic features of the source language text or studying the source language by the language learners.
- Modified Literal Translation: Translator modifies the order and grammar enough to use acceptable sentence structure in the receptor language but the lexical items are translated literally. However the result of this translation does not sound natural. In other words, in Modified Literal Translation, the translator usually adjusts the translation enough to avoid real nonsense and wrong meanings but unnaturalness still remains.
- Idiomatic Translation: is meaning-based translation which makes every effort to communicate the meaning of the source language text in the natural forms of the receptor language. A truly idiomatic translation does not sound like a translation. It sounds like it was originally written in the receptor language, and this is the goal of a good translator.
- Unduly Free Translation: is a kind of translation which adds extraneous information not in the source text or changes the meaning of the source language or distorts the facts of the historical and cultural setting of the source language text. This kind of translation is not considered acceptable translation for most purposes. It is made for purposes of humor, or to bring about a special response from the receptor language speakers.
- Form: when we speak of the form of a language, we are referring to the actual words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, etc. These forms are referred to as SURFACE STRUCTURE of a language.
- Meaning: translation consists of transferring the meaning of the SL to the TL. During translation process it is meaning which is being transferred and must be held constant. Only the form changes.
- Translation: consists of studying the lexicon, grammatical structure, communication situation, and cultural context of SLT, analyzing it in order to determine its meaning, and then reconstructing this same meaning using the lexicon and grammatical structure which are appropriate in TL and its cultural context.
- The best translation: is the one which:
- uses the normal language forms of the TL
- communicates ,as much as possible, to the TL speakers the same meaning that was understood by the speakers of the SL
- maintains the dynamics of the original SLT, i.e. the translation is presented in such a way that it will evoke the same response as the SLT attempted to evoke.
- Characteristics of language which affect translation:
- Meaning components, which are 'packaged' into lexical items but they are packaged differently in one language than in another, like meaning component of plurality.
- Same meaning components will occur in several forms, like the word sheep in English and the words lamb, ram and ewe which also include the meaning sheep.
- One form will be used to represent several alternative meaning. Most words have more than one meaning. Just as words have primary and secondary (figurative) meanings, also grammatical markers have their primary function and often have other secondary (figurative) functions.
- A single meaning may be expressed in a variety of forms, depending how that meaning relates to other meanings.
- Skewing: is the diversity or the lack of one-to-one correlation between form and meaning.
- Language: is a complex set of skewed relationships between meaning (semantics) and form (lexicon & grammar).
- Meaning must have the priority over the form in translation because it is the meaning which is to be carried over from the SL to TL, not the linguistic forms.
نایدا: ترجمه عبارتست از پیدا کردن نزدیکترین معادل طبیعی پیام زبان دهنده در زبان گیرنده، نخست از لحاظ معنایی و دوم از لحاظ کسب.
نیومارک: ترجمه فن و حرفه ای است که طی آن سعی شود یک پیام نوشتاری در زبانی را با همان پیام در زبان دیگر جایگزین کنند.
کت فورد: ترجمه جایگزینی مواد متنی در زبان مبدا با مواد متنی در زبان مقصد است.
جامعترین تعریف ترجمه با توجه به ماهیت فرایند سخن در چارچوب نظریه سخن کاوی و متن کاوی: ترجمه عبارتست از فرایند جایگزینی عناصر متنی زبان مبدا به وسیله عناصر متنی زبان مقصد که طی آن مترجم باید سعی کند با این عمل جایگزین سازی خود زمینه ای را فراهم آورد که در آن نویسنده اصلی و خواننده متن ترجمه با هم به تعامل و تاثیر متقابل بپردازند.
انواع ترجمه از دیدگاه کت فورد:
- ترجمه کامل (Full Translation) در مقابل ترجمه ناقص (Partial Translation):
معیار تقسیم بندی میزان و مقدار عناصری از زبان مبدا است که ترجمه می شود.
- در ترجمه کامل تمامی یک متن ترجمه می شود.
- در ترجمه ناقص بعضی قسمتهای متن زبان مبدا عینا به متن مقصد منتقل می گردد.
- ترجمه کلی (Total Translation) در مقابل ترجمه محدود (Restricted Translation):
معیار تقسیم بندی، سطوح ساختمانی زبان ( مانند واج شناسی، واج آرایی، تکواژشناسی و غیره) است.
- در ترجمه محدود جایگزینی عناصر متنی زبان مبدا توسط عناصر متنی زبان مقصد در همه سطوح ساختمانی صورت نمی گیرد.
- در ترجمه کلی عمل جایگزینی عناصر متنی در کلیه سطوح از نگاره شناسی گرفته تا سطوح معنایی و کاربردی انجام می گیرد و عناصر زبان مبدا در هیچ سطحی به زبان مقصد منتقل نمی شود.
- ترجمه آزاد (Free Translation) در مقابل ترجمه وابسته (Rank-Bound Translation):
معیار تقسیم بندی واحد ساختمانی زبان (کلمه، عبارت، جمله ساده، جمله غیر ساده و متن) می باشد.
- اگر در جریان ترجمه، فرایند جایگزینی عناصر متنی زبان مبدا با توجه به کل محتوا و پیام و بدون در نظر گرفتن مراتب مختلف واحد های ساختمانی زبان مبدا انجام گیرد، ترجمه آزاد نامیده می شود.
- اگر مترجم سعی کند مراتب مختلف زبان مبدا را بدون تغییر به زبان مقصد منتقل کند، یعنی جمله را به جمله، عبارت را به عبارت، کلمه را به کلمه و ... ترجمه کند، چنین ترجمه ای ترجمه وابسته نامیده می شود.
انواع ترجمه از دیدگاه یاکوبسن
- ترجمه درون زبانی (Intralingual Translation): که عبارتست از ادراک و تفسیر پیام در یک زبان و بیان آن به عبارات و کلمات دیگری در همان زبان.
- ترجمه بین زبانی (Interlingual Translation): که همان نوع متداول و شناخته شده ترجمه است و منظور از آن بیان پیام ارائه شده در یک زبان با علائم و نشانه های زبانی زبان دیگر است.
- ترجمه انترسیمیاتیک یا تغییر و تبدیل علائم رمزی (Intersemiotic Translation): که عبارتست از تغییر نظام علائم رمزی اصلی و ارائه پیام به وسیله نظام دیگر (مثلا تبدیل یک رمان به یک فیلمنامه).
انواع ترجمه از دیدگاه نیومارک
معیار تقسیم بندی وفاداری به نویسنده اصلی و یا خواننده متن ترجمه و دقت در مورد فهمیده شدن پیام توسط وی می باشد.
- ترجمه پیامی (Communicative Translation): می کوشد تا بر خوانندگان خود تاثیر هر چه بیشتر مشابه با تاثیر وارده بر خوانندگان متن اصلی بگذارد. این نوع ترجمه صرفا خواننده دوم را مخاطب قرار می دهدو مایل نیست عناصر خارجی وارد زبان مقصد شوند. به طور کلی ترجمه پیامی احتمالا آسانتر، ساده تر، روشن تر، مستقیم تر و قراردادی تر است.
- ترجمه معنایی (Semantic Translation): سعی می کند تا آنجایی که ساختارهای معنایی و نحوی زبان مقصد اجازه می دهد عین معنای بافتی متن اصلی را ارائه کند. ترجمه معنایی در جارچوب فرهنگ اصلی باقی می ماند و تنها از طریق معنای تجربی خواننده را در دستیابی به پیام یاری می دهد. این نوع ترجمه تا حدودی پیچیده تر، ناهموارتر، مفصلتر و دقیقتر است.
ترجمه تاریخچه نسبتا پر سابقه ای دارد. اولین آثار ترجمه شده به 3000 سال قبل از میلاد و به دوران امپراطوری قدیم مصر تعلق دارد و در غرب حدود 300 ق.م. هنگامی که رومیان قسمت اعظم فرهنگ یونانی را زیر سلطه خود در آوردند، کار ترجمه اهمیت و رونق پیدا کرد. در قرن دوازدهم غرب در اسپانیا با اسلام تماس پیدا می کند که شرایط حاکم از جمله تفاوت های موجود بین دو فرهنگ و تماس مداوم میان دوزبان انجام ترجمه در سطح وسیعی را ایجاب می کند و پس از سقوط امپراطوری مغرب (مور) عده ای از مترجمان به ترجمه عربی آثار کلاسیک علمی و فلسفی یونانی می پردازند.
با گسترش مسیحیت کار ترجمه نقش مذهبی و مقدسی در راه انتشار کلام خدا به خود می گیرد. ترجمه های انجیل در دوران بسیار اولیه صورت گرفت و دستور ترجمه نسخه سن جروم که در نسلهای بعدی مترجمان تاثیر بسیار به جا نهاد در یال 384 بعد از میلاد از جانب سن داماسوس به عمل آمد. ترجمه انجیل تا قرن هفدهم از مسائل و معضلات عمده به شمار می رفت و این مساله با پیدایش اندیشه فرهنگهای ملی و تاثیر آنها در زبان و تفهیم و تفاهم بین متکلمین زبانهای مختلف ابعاد جدیدی پیدا کرد. اولین ترجمه انجیل کامل به زبان انگلیسی توسط ویکلیف بین سالهای 1380 و 1384 میلادی به عمل آمد.
در حالی که در قرن نوزدهم ترجمه به عنوان وسیله ای یک جانبه جهت ارتباط بین بزرگان ادب و تا حدود کمی بین فلاسفه و دانشمندان و خوانندگان آنها در سراسر جهان به شمار می رفت، قرن بیستم به عنوان "عصر ترجمه" نامیده شده است. ضرورتهای سیاسی، نیازهای اجتماعی، فرهنگی و علمی و رقابتهای تجاری و اقتصادی قرن حاضرایجاب می کند که کلیه مدارک، مقالات، کتابها و اسناد به اکثر زبانهای زنده دنیا و لااقل به زبانهای طرفین معامله ترجمه بشوند. تشکیل موسسات و نهادهای سیاسی و اجتماعی بین المللی نظیر یونسکو و سازمان ملل و غیره، ترقیات روزافزون علوم در اختراعات و اکتشافات جدید و نیاز متکلمین زبانهای مختلف به آگاهی از آنها، همه و همه شاءن و مقام و میزان ضرورت ترجمه را بالا برده است.
ترجمه در ایران تاریخ چندان پرسابقه ای ندارد. از جمله اولین کتابهای ترجمه شده به فارسی در قرن سیزدهم هجری، رو کتاب پطر کبیر و شارل دوازدهم است که توسط میرزا رضا مهندس در زمان و به دستور عباس میرزا از زبان فرانسه ترجمه شده اند. با تاسیس دارالفنون و اعزام محصلین ایرانی به خارج کار ترجمه در ایران رو به فزونی نهاد و بالاخره در سالهای بعد به لحاظ ازدیاد تماسهای بین المللی و نیازهای علمی و فرهنگی رونق بیشتری پیدا کرد تا اینکه در حال حاضر در اکثر زمینه های علمی و ادبی کتابها و مقالات بسیاری از زبانهای زنده دنیا به فارسی ترجمه می شود.
برگرفته از کتاب درآمدی به اصول و روش ترجمه از کاظم لطفی پور ساعدی