Chapter 1
1.1 The concept of translation
• The focus of this course is on written translation rather than oral translation (the
latter is commonly known as interpreting or interpretation), although the
overlaps make a clear distinction impossible. More subtly, interpreting is defined,
by Otto Kade, as 'a form of Translation (in the wider sense) in which (a) the source
language text is presented only once and thus cannot be reviewed or replayed,
and (b) the target language text is produced under time pressure, with little
chance for correction and revision.
• The English term translation, first attested in a around 1340 derives either from
Old French translation or more directly from the Latin translatio (trans- porting"),
itself coming from the participle of the verb transferre ('to carry over'). In the
field of languages, translation today has several meanings:
• (1) the general subject field or phenomenon ('I studied translation at university)
• (2) the product that is, the text that has been translated ('they published the Arabic translation of
the report')
• (3) the process of producing the translation, otherwise known as translating ('translation service').
• The process of translation between two different written languages
involves the changing of an original written text (the source text or
ST) in the original verbal language (the source language or SL)into a
written text (the target text or TT) in a different verbal language (the
target language or TL.).
• Source text (ST) Target text (TT)
in source language (SL) in the target language
(TL)
• The internationalization and communication practices have meant that this
traditional conceptualization of translation needs to be broadened to include
those contexts in which there is no clearly defined source text.
• One of the three categories of translation described by the Russo-American
structuralist Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) in his seminal paper 'On linguistic
aspects of translation. Jakobson's categories are as follows:
• (1) Intralingual translation, or 'rewording' -'an interpretation of verbal signs by
means of other signs of the same language‘
• (2) interlingual translation, or 'translation proper' - 'an interpretation of verbal
signs by means of some other language‘
• (3) intersemiotic translation, or 'transmutation' - 'an interpretation of verbal signs
by means of signs of non-verbal sign systems'.
• Intersemiotic translation, for example, occurs when a written text is translated
into a different mode, such as music, film or painting
• Intralingual translation would occur when we produce a summary or otherwise
rewrite a text in the same language, say a children's version of an encyclopedia. It
also occurs when we rephrase an expression in the same language.
• Interlingual translation occurs between two different verbal sign systems, that
has been the traditional focus of translation studies, for example, to translate a
text from English into Arabic or vice versa.
1.2 What is translation studies?
• Throughout history, written and spoken translations have played a crucial role in
interhuman communication, not least in providing access to important texts for
scholarship and religious purposes. As world trade has grown, so has the
importance of translation. The study of translation as an academic subject only
really began in the second half of the twentieth century. In the English-speaking
world, this discipline is now generally known as translation studies thanks to the
Dutch-based US scholar James S. Holmes (1924-1986). In his key defining paper
delivered in 1972. Cher but not widely available until 1988, Holmes describes the
then nascent discipline as in efsa being concerned with "the complex of problems
clustered round the phenomenon of translating and translations"
• There are four very visible ways in which translation studies has become more
prominent:
• First, just as the demand for translation has soared, so has there been a vast
expansion in specialized translating and interpreting programmes at both
undergraduate and postgraduate level.
• Second, the past decades have also seen a proliferation of conferences books and
journals on translation in many languages.
• Third, as the number of publications has increased so has the demand for general
and analytical instruments such as anthologies, databases, encyclopedias,
handbooks and introductory texts.
• Fourth, international organizations have also prospered (International Federation of
Translators, FIT) was established in 1953.
• 1.3 An early history of the discipline
• Writings on the subject of translating go far back in recorded history. The practice
of translation was crucial for the early dissemination of key cultural and religious
texts and concepts.
• In western Europe, the translation of the Bible was to be the battleground of
conflicting ideologies for well over a thousand years and especially during the
Reformation in the sixteenth century. In opened China, it was the translation of
the Buddhist sutras that inaugurated a long discussion on translation practice
from the first century AC.
• The study of the field developed into an academic discipline only in the latter part
of the twentieth century, Before that, translation had often been relegated to an
element of language learning.
• From the late eighteenth century to the 1960s and beyond, language learning in
secondary schools in many countries had come to be dominated by what was
known as grammar-translation, this approach centred on the rote study of the
grammatical rules and structures of the foreign language. These rules were both
practiced and tested by the translation of a series of usually unconnected and
artificially constructed sentences exemplifying the structure(s) being studied.
• Grammar-translation later fell into increasing disrepute, particularly in many
English-language countries, with the rise of alternative forms of language
teaching such as the direct method and the communicative approach.
• The communicative approach stressed students' natural capacity to learn
language and attempts to replicate 'authentic' language-learning conditions in
the classroom. It often privileged spoken over written forms, at least initially, and
generally avoided use of the students' mother tongue. This led to the abandoning
of translation in language learning. As far as teaching was concerned, translation
then tended to become restricted to higher-level and university language courses
and professional translator training.
• Another area in which translation became the subject of research was
contrastive linguistics, this is the study of two languages in contrast in an attempt
to identify general and specific differences between them.
• Although, Comparative literature, where literature is studied and compared
transnationally and transculturally, necessitating the reading of some works in
translation.
• 1.4 The Holmes, Toury ‘map’
• A seminal paper in the development of the field as a distinct discipline was James
S. Holmes's 'The name and nature of translation studies’. Holmes put forward an
overall framework, describing what translation studies covers. This framework
was subsequently presented by the leadingIsraeli translation scholar Gideon
Toury.
• In Holmes's explanations of this framewok, the objectives of the
• “pure" areas of research are: (1) the description of the phenomena of translation(
descriptive translation).
• (2) the establishment of general principles to explain and predict such
phenomena (translation theory).
• The theoretical branch is divided into general and partial theories.
• By 'general', Holmes is referring to those writings that seek to describe or
account for every type of translation and to make generalizations that will be
relevant for translation as a whole
• "Partial" theoretical studies are restricted according to the parameters.
• The descriptive branch of 'pure' research in Holmes's map is known as descriptive
translation studies. It may examine: (1) the product; (2) the function; and (3) the
process.
• (1) Product-oriented DTS examines existing translations. This may involve the
description or analysis of a single ST-TT pair or a comparative analysis of several
TTs of the same ST (into one or more TLs). These smaller-scale studies can build
up into a larger body of translation analysis looking at a specific period, language
or text/discourse type. Larger-scale studies can be either diachronic (following
development over time) or synchronic (at a single point or period in time)
• (2) By function oriented DTS, Holmesmeans the description of the function [of
translations] in the recipient sociocultural situation: it is a study of contexts rather
than texts'. Issues that may be researched include which texts were translated
when and where, and the influences that were exerted. Holmes terms this area
'socio-translation studies. Nowadays it would probably be called the sociology
and historiography of translation.
• (3) Process-oriented DTS in Holmes's framework is concerned with the
psychology of translation, i.e. it is concerned with trying to find out what happens
in the mind of a translator. Work from a cognitive perspective includes think-
aloud protocols (where recordings are made of translators' verbalization of the
translation process as they translate). More recent research using new
technologies such as eye-tracking shows how this area is now being more
systematically analysed.
• The of DTS research can be fed into the theoretical branch to evolve either a
general theory of translation or, more likely, partial theories of translation
'restricted' according to the subdivisions:
• Medium-restricted theories subdivide according to translation by machine and
humans, with further subdivisions according to whether the machine/ computer
is working alone (automatic machine translation) or as an aid to the human
translator (computer-assisted translation), to whether the human translation is
written or spoken and to whether spoken translation (interpreting) is consecutive
or simultaneous.
• Area-restricted theories are restricted to specific languages or groups of
languages and/or cultures. Holmes notes that language-restricted theories are
closely related to work in contrastive linguistics and stylistics
• Rank-restricted theories are linguistic theories that have been restricted to a
level of (normally) the word or sentence. At the time Holmes was writing, there
was already a trend towards text linguistics, i.e. analysis at the level of the text,
which has since become far more popular.
• Text-type restricted theories look at discourse types and genres; e.g. literary,
business and technical translation. Text-type approaches came to prominence
with the work of Reiss and Vermeer, among others, in the 1970s
• The term time-restricted is self-explanatory, referring to theories and translations
limited according to specific time frames and periods.
• Problem-restricted theories may refer to certain problems such as equivalence (a
key issue that came to the fore in the 1960s and 1970s) or wider question of
whether so-called ‘universals’ of translation exist.
• Holmes himself is at pains to point out that several different restrictions may
apply at any one time
• The applied branch of Holmes's framework concerns applications to the practice
of translation:
• translation training: teaching methods, testing techniques, curriculum design
• translation aids: such as dictionaries and grammars.
• translation criticism: the evaluation of translations, including the marking of
student translations and the reviews of published translations.
• Another area Holmes mentions is translation policy, where he sees the
translation scholar advising on the place of translation in society. This should
include what place, if any, it should occupy in the language teaching and learning
curriculum.
• There are drawbacks to the structure. The divisions in the 'map' as a whole are in
many ways artificial, and Holmes himself points out that the theoretical,
descriptive and applied areas do influence one another. The main merit of the
divisions is as Toury states that they allow a clarification and a division of labour
between the various areas of translation studies which, in the past, have often
been confused.
