UNIT 1: SOME BASIC CONCEPTS IN TRANSLATION
1. What is translation?
- Translation is the expression in another language (target language) of what has been expressed in one
language (source language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalencies. (By Roger T. Bell).
- Translation is the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of an
equivalent text in a second language. (By Roger T. Bell).
The author continues and makes the problems of equivalence very plain:
Texts in different languages can be equivalent in different degrees (fully or partially different), in respect
of different levels of presentation (in respect of context, of semantics, of grammar, of lexis, etc.) and at
different ranks (word-for-word, phrase-for-phrase, sentence- for-sentence).
However, languages are different from each other; they are different in form having different codes and
rules regulating the construction of grammatical stretches of language and these forms have different
meanings.
To shift from one language to another is, by definition, to change the forms. Also, the contrasting forms
convey meanings which cannot but fail to coincide totally; there is no absolute synonym between words
in the same language, why should anyone be surprised to discover a lack synonym between languages.
- Translation is rendering a written text into another language in a way that the author intended the text.
(By Bui Tien Bao- Hanoi National University)
“Translators are concerned with written texts. They render written texts from one language into another
language. Translators are required to translate texts which arrange from simple items including birth
certificates or driving licenses to more complex written materials such as articles in journals of various
kinds, business contracts and legal documents.” (Bui Tien Bao- Hanoi National University).
- Translation, by dictionary definition, consists of changing from one state or form to another, to turn into
one’s own or another’s language. (The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 1974). Translation is basically a
change of form. When we speak of the form of a language, we are referring to the actual words, phrases,
sentences, paragraphs, etc. The forms are referred to as the surface structure of a language. It is the
structural part of language which is actually seen in print or heard in speech. In translation the form of
the source language is replaced by the form of the receptor/target language. But how is this change
accomplished? What determines the choices of form in the translation?
Translation consists of transferring the meaning of the source language into the receptor language. This is
done by going from the form of the first language to the form of the second language by a way of semantic
structure. It is meaning that is being transferred and must be held constant. Only the form changes. The form
from which the translation is made will be called the source language and the form into which it is to be
changed will be called the receptor language. Translation, then, consists of studying the lexicon, grammatical
structure, communication situation, and cultural context of the source language text, analyzing it in order to
determine its meaning, and then reconstructing this same meaning using the lexicon, grammatical structure
which are appropriate in the receptor language and its cultural context.
To do effective translation one must discover the meaning of the source language and use the receptor
language forms which express the meaning in a natural way.
2. Characteristics of language which affect translation
There are certain characteristics of languages which have a very direct bearing on principles of translation.
- Meaning components are packaged into lexical items, but they are packaged differently in one language
than in another. In most languages there is a meaning of plurality, for example the English -s. This often
occurs in the grammar as a suffix on the nouns or verbs or both. In Vietnamese, however, plurality is
expressed in an isolated word “những / các”’.
The same meaning component will occur in several surface structure lexical items. In English, the word
“sheep‟ occurs. However, the words “lamb‟, “ram‟ and “ewe‟ also include the meaning “sheep‟. They
include the addition meaning components of young (in “lamb‟, adult and male in “ram‟ and adult and
female in “ewe”
1
, - One form will be used to represent several alternative meanings. Most words have more than one
meaning. There will be a primary meaning - the one which usually comes to mind when the word is said
in isolation - and the secondary meaning - the additional meanings, which a word has in context with
other words. In English, we can say “the boy runs‟, using “run‟ in its primary meaning. We can also say
“the motor runs, the river runs, and his nose runs‟, using runs in its secondary meanings.
This principle is not limited to lexical items for it is also true that the same grammatical pattern may
express several quite different meanings. For instance, the English possessive phrase “my house‟ may
mean “the house I built‟, “the house I rent‟, “the house I live in‟, or “the house for which I drew up in
my plans.‟ Only the larger context determines the meaning. Notice the following possessive phrases
and the variety of meanings:
my car ownership
my brother kinship
my foot part-whole
my singing action
my book ownership or authorship (the book I own, or, the book I wrote)
my village residence (the village where I live)
my train use (the train I ride on)
Whole sentences may also have several functions. A question form may be used for a non- question.
For example, the question: “Mary, why don’t you wash the dishes?” has a form of a question, and may
in some context be asking for information, but it is often used with the meaning of command rather
than a real question. A simple English sentence like “He made the bed.” May mean either “He made (as
a carpenter would make) the bed”, or “He put the sheets, blanket, and pillows in neat order on the
bed.”
Just as words have primary and secondary meanings, so grammatical markers have their primary
function and often have other secondary functions. The preposition “on‟ is used in English to signal a
variety of meanings. Compare the following uses of “on‟ in the following sentences
John found the book on the floor.
John found the book on mathematics.
John found the book on Tuesday.
John found the book on sale.
Compare also the following uses of ‘by’
John was stopped by the policeman.
John was stopped by the bookstand.
In the first, by is used to signal the meaning that the policeman is the agent of the action. In the
second, by is used to signal that the bookstand is the location.
- A single meaning may be expressed in a variety of forms. For example, the meaning “the cat is black”
may be expressed by the following: the cat is black, the black cat, and, the cat, which is black, depending
on how that meaning relates to other meanings. In addition, the meanings of “Is this place taken?” “Is
there anyone sitting here?” and “May I sit here?” are essentially the same.
We have seen that even within a single language there are a great variety of ways in which form expresses
meaning. Only when a form being used in its primary meaning or function is there a one-to-one correlation
between form and meaning. The other meanings are secondary meanings or figurative meanings. Words have
these extended meanings and in the same way grammatical forms have extended usages (secondary and
figurative function).
This characteristic of “skewing”; that is, the diversity or the lack of one-to-one correlation between form and
meaning is the basic reason that translation is a complicated task. If there were no skewing, then all lexical
items and all grammatical forms would have only one meaning and a literal word-for-word and grammatical
structure-for-grammatical structure translation would be possible. But the fact is that a language is a complex
set of skewed relationship between meaning (semantics) and form (lexicon and grammar). Each language
2
, has its own distinctive forms for representing the meaning. Therefore, in translation the same meaning may
have to be expressed in another language by a very different form.
To translate the form of one language literally according to the corresponding form in another language would
often change the meaning or at least result in a form which is unnatural in the second language. Meaning
must, therefore, have priority over form in translation. It is meaning that is to be carried over from the source
language to the receptor language, not the linguistic forms.
The nature of language is that each language uses different forms and these forms have secondary and
figurative meanings which add further complications. A word-for-word translation which follows closely the
form of the source language is called a literal translation. A literal translation does not communicate the
meaning of the source text. It is generally no more than a string of words intended to help someone read a
text in its original language. It is unnatural and hard to understand, and may even be quite meaningless, or
give a wrong meaning in the receptor language. It can hardly be called a translation. The goal of a translator
should be to produce a receptor language text (a translation) which is idiomatic; that is one which has the
same meaning as the source language but is expressed in the natural form of the receptor language. The
meaning, not form is retained.
The following is a literal translation of a story first told in the Quiche language of Guatemala:
“It is said that being one man not from here, not known where the his or the he comes where. One day the
things he walks in a plantation or in them the coastlands, he saw his appearance one little necklace, or he
thought that a little necklace the very pretty thrown on the ground in the road. He took the necklace this he
threw in his mouth for its cause that coming the one person another to his behind ness, for his that not he
encounters the one the following this way in his behindness not he knows and that the necklace the he threw
in his mouth this one snake and the man this one died right now because not he knows his appearance the
snake or that the he ate this not this a necklace only probably this snake.”
Now compare the above with the following less literal translation of the same story:
“It is said that there once was a man not from here, and I do not know his town or where he came from, who
one day was walking in a plantation (or in the coastlands). He saw a little necklace, or rather, what he thought
was a very pretty little necklace, lying on the road. He grabbed this necklace and threw this into his mouth
because there was someone coming along behind him, and he did not want the other person to see it. He did
not know that the necklace he threw into his mouth was really a snake. The man died in short order because
he did not recognize from its appearance that it was a snake. He did not know that what he had put in his
mouth was not a necklace, but rather a snake.”
In the first, each Quiche word was replaced by the nearest English equivalent. The result was nonsense. In
the second translation, the natural forms of English lexicon and grammar were used to express the meaning
of the Quiche story. Below the story is again rewritten in a more idiomatic English style.
“I am told that there once was a stranger from some other town who was walking in a plantation along the
coast. As he walked along he suddenly saw a very pretty little necklace lying on the road. He snatched up this
necklace and threw this into his mouth because there was another person walking behind him and he did not
want him to see the necklace. The stranger did not know that the necklace was really a snake. The man died
immediately. He died because he did not realize that it was a snake. He did not know he put a snake into his
mouth rather than a necklace.”
Anything which can be said in one language can be said in another. It is possible to translate. The goal of the
translator is to keep the meaning constant. Wherever necessary, the receptor language form should be
changed in order that the source language meaning should not be distorted. Since a meaning expressed by a
particular form in one language may be expressed by quite a different form in another language, it is often
necessary to change the form when translating.
3. Translation Methods
a. SL emphasis versus TL emphasis
Peter Newmark (1988) generalized a number of translation methods as follow.
Word-for-word translation
This is often demonstrated as interlinear translation, with The TL immediately below the SL words.
The SL word-order is preserved, and the words are translated singly by their most common meanings,
out of context. Cultural words are translated literally.
3
1. What is translation?
- Translation is the expression in another language (target language) of what has been expressed in one
language (source language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalencies. (By Roger T. Bell).
- Translation is the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of an
equivalent text in a second language. (By Roger T. Bell).
The author continues and makes the problems of equivalence very plain:
Texts in different languages can be equivalent in different degrees (fully or partially different), in respect
of different levels of presentation (in respect of context, of semantics, of grammar, of lexis, etc.) and at
different ranks (word-for-word, phrase-for-phrase, sentence- for-sentence).
However, languages are different from each other; they are different in form having different codes and
rules regulating the construction of grammatical stretches of language and these forms have different
meanings.
To shift from one language to another is, by definition, to change the forms. Also, the contrasting forms
convey meanings which cannot but fail to coincide totally; there is no absolute synonym between words
in the same language, why should anyone be surprised to discover a lack synonym between languages.
- Translation is rendering a written text into another language in a way that the author intended the text.
(By Bui Tien Bao- Hanoi National University)
“Translators are concerned with written texts. They render written texts from one language into another
language. Translators are required to translate texts which arrange from simple items including birth
certificates or driving licenses to more complex written materials such as articles in journals of various
kinds, business contracts and legal documents.” (Bui Tien Bao- Hanoi National University).
- Translation, by dictionary definition, consists of changing from one state or form to another, to turn into
one’s own or another’s language. (The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 1974). Translation is basically a
change of form. When we speak of the form of a language, we are referring to the actual words, phrases,
sentences, paragraphs, etc. The forms are referred to as the surface structure of a language. It is the
structural part of language which is actually seen in print or heard in speech. In translation the form of
the source language is replaced by the form of the receptor/target language. But how is this change
accomplished? What determines the choices of form in the translation?
Translation consists of transferring the meaning of the source language into the receptor language. This is
done by going from the form of the first language to the form of the second language by a way of semantic
structure. It is meaning that is being transferred and must be held constant. Only the form changes. The form
from which the translation is made will be called the source language and the form into which it is to be
changed will be called the receptor language. Translation, then, consists of studying the lexicon, grammatical
structure, communication situation, and cultural context of the source language text, analyzing it in order to
determine its meaning, and then reconstructing this same meaning using the lexicon, grammatical structure
which are appropriate in the receptor language and its cultural context.
To do effective translation one must discover the meaning of the source language and use the receptor
language forms which express the meaning in a natural way.
2. Characteristics of language which affect translation
There are certain characteristics of languages which have a very direct bearing on principles of translation.
- Meaning components are packaged into lexical items, but they are packaged differently in one language
than in another. In most languages there is a meaning of plurality, for example the English -s. This often
occurs in the grammar as a suffix on the nouns or verbs or both. In Vietnamese, however, plurality is
expressed in an isolated word “những / các”’.
The same meaning component will occur in several surface structure lexical items. In English, the word
“sheep‟ occurs. However, the words “lamb‟, “ram‟ and “ewe‟ also include the meaning “sheep‟. They
include the addition meaning components of young (in “lamb‟, adult and male in “ram‟ and adult and
female in “ewe”
1
, - One form will be used to represent several alternative meanings. Most words have more than one
meaning. There will be a primary meaning - the one which usually comes to mind when the word is said
in isolation - and the secondary meaning - the additional meanings, which a word has in context with
other words. In English, we can say “the boy runs‟, using “run‟ in its primary meaning. We can also say
“the motor runs, the river runs, and his nose runs‟, using runs in its secondary meanings.
This principle is not limited to lexical items for it is also true that the same grammatical pattern may
express several quite different meanings. For instance, the English possessive phrase “my house‟ may
mean “the house I built‟, “the house I rent‟, “the house I live in‟, or “the house for which I drew up in
my plans.‟ Only the larger context determines the meaning. Notice the following possessive phrases
and the variety of meanings:
my car ownership
my brother kinship
my foot part-whole
my singing action
my book ownership or authorship (the book I own, or, the book I wrote)
my village residence (the village where I live)
my train use (the train I ride on)
Whole sentences may also have several functions. A question form may be used for a non- question.
For example, the question: “Mary, why don’t you wash the dishes?” has a form of a question, and may
in some context be asking for information, but it is often used with the meaning of command rather
than a real question. A simple English sentence like “He made the bed.” May mean either “He made (as
a carpenter would make) the bed”, or “He put the sheets, blanket, and pillows in neat order on the
bed.”
Just as words have primary and secondary meanings, so grammatical markers have their primary
function and often have other secondary functions. The preposition “on‟ is used in English to signal a
variety of meanings. Compare the following uses of “on‟ in the following sentences
John found the book on the floor.
John found the book on mathematics.
John found the book on Tuesday.
John found the book on sale.
Compare also the following uses of ‘by’
John was stopped by the policeman.
John was stopped by the bookstand.
In the first, by is used to signal the meaning that the policeman is the agent of the action. In the
second, by is used to signal that the bookstand is the location.
- A single meaning may be expressed in a variety of forms. For example, the meaning “the cat is black”
may be expressed by the following: the cat is black, the black cat, and, the cat, which is black, depending
on how that meaning relates to other meanings. In addition, the meanings of “Is this place taken?” “Is
there anyone sitting here?” and “May I sit here?” are essentially the same.
We have seen that even within a single language there are a great variety of ways in which form expresses
meaning. Only when a form being used in its primary meaning or function is there a one-to-one correlation
between form and meaning. The other meanings are secondary meanings or figurative meanings. Words have
these extended meanings and in the same way grammatical forms have extended usages (secondary and
figurative function).
This characteristic of “skewing”; that is, the diversity or the lack of one-to-one correlation between form and
meaning is the basic reason that translation is a complicated task. If there were no skewing, then all lexical
items and all grammatical forms would have only one meaning and a literal word-for-word and grammatical
structure-for-grammatical structure translation would be possible. But the fact is that a language is a complex
set of skewed relationship between meaning (semantics) and form (lexicon and grammar). Each language
2
, has its own distinctive forms for representing the meaning. Therefore, in translation the same meaning may
have to be expressed in another language by a very different form.
To translate the form of one language literally according to the corresponding form in another language would
often change the meaning or at least result in a form which is unnatural in the second language. Meaning
must, therefore, have priority over form in translation. It is meaning that is to be carried over from the source
language to the receptor language, not the linguistic forms.
The nature of language is that each language uses different forms and these forms have secondary and
figurative meanings which add further complications. A word-for-word translation which follows closely the
form of the source language is called a literal translation. A literal translation does not communicate the
meaning of the source text. It is generally no more than a string of words intended to help someone read a
text in its original language. It is unnatural and hard to understand, and may even be quite meaningless, or
give a wrong meaning in the receptor language. It can hardly be called a translation. The goal of a translator
should be to produce a receptor language text (a translation) which is idiomatic; that is one which has the
same meaning as the source language but is expressed in the natural form of the receptor language. The
meaning, not form is retained.
The following is a literal translation of a story first told in the Quiche language of Guatemala:
“It is said that being one man not from here, not known where the his or the he comes where. One day the
things he walks in a plantation or in them the coastlands, he saw his appearance one little necklace, or he
thought that a little necklace the very pretty thrown on the ground in the road. He took the necklace this he
threw in his mouth for its cause that coming the one person another to his behind ness, for his that not he
encounters the one the following this way in his behindness not he knows and that the necklace the he threw
in his mouth this one snake and the man this one died right now because not he knows his appearance the
snake or that the he ate this not this a necklace only probably this snake.”
Now compare the above with the following less literal translation of the same story:
“It is said that there once was a man not from here, and I do not know his town or where he came from, who
one day was walking in a plantation (or in the coastlands). He saw a little necklace, or rather, what he thought
was a very pretty little necklace, lying on the road. He grabbed this necklace and threw this into his mouth
because there was someone coming along behind him, and he did not want the other person to see it. He did
not know that the necklace he threw into his mouth was really a snake. The man died in short order because
he did not recognize from its appearance that it was a snake. He did not know that what he had put in his
mouth was not a necklace, but rather a snake.”
In the first, each Quiche word was replaced by the nearest English equivalent. The result was nonsense. In
the second translation, the natural forms of English lexicon and grammar were used to express the meaning
of the Quiche story. Below the story is again rewritten in a more idiomatic English style.
“I am told that there once was a stranger from some other town who was walking in a plantation along the
coast. As he walked along he suddenly saw a very pretty little necklace lying on the road. He snatched up this
necklace and threw this into his mouth because there was another person walking behind him and he did not
want him to see the necklace. The stranger did not know that the necklace was really a snake. The man died
immediately. He died because he did not realize that it was a snake. He did not know he put a snake into his
mouth rather than a necklace.”
Anything which can be said in one language can be said in another. It is possible to translate. The goal of the
translator is to keep the meaning constant. Wherever necessary, the receptor language form should be
changed in order that the source language meaning should not be distorted. Since a meaning expressed by a
particular form in one language may be expressed by quite a different form in another language, it is often
necessary to change the form when translating.
3. Translation Methods
a. SL emphasis versus TL emphasis
Peter Newmark (1988) generalized a number of translation methods as follow.
Word-for-word translation
This is often demonstrated as interlinear translation, with The TL immediately below the SL words.
The SL word-order is preserved, and the words are translated singly by their most common meanings,
out of context. Cultural words are translated literally.
3
