Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research

Imam Ja`far al-Sadiq University

Department: English Language
Third level
Study: Evening

What is Translation ?
Preparation

Hameed Kareem Sulobi

Supervisor

Dr. Suaad Kadhim

Year (2019-2020)
What is Translation?
Translation is the communication of meaning from one language (the source) to
another language (the target). Translation refers to written information, whereas
interpretation refers to spoken information.

The purpose of translation is to convey the original tone and intent of a message,
taking into account cultural and regional differences between source and target
languages.

Translation has been used by humans for centuries, beginning after the
appearance of written literature. Modern-day translators use sophisticated tools
and technologies to accomplish their work, and rely heavily on software
applications to simplify and streamline their tasks.

Organizations around the world, encompassing a multitude of sectors, missions,

and mandates, rely on translation for content as diverse as product labels,
technical documentation, user reviews, promotional materials, annual reports, and
much, much more.

Etymology

The English word "translation" derives from the Latin word translatio,[6] which
comes from trans, "across" + ferre, "to carry" or "to bring" (-latio in turn coming
from latus, the past participle of ferre). Thus translatio is "a carrying across" or
"a bringing across": in this case, of a text from one language to another. [7]
Some Slavic languages and the Germanic languages (other
than Dutch and Afrikaans) have calqued their words for the concept of
"translation" on translatio.[7][8][a][9]
The Romance languages and the remaining Slavic languages have derived their
words for the concept of "translation" from an alternative Latin word, traductio,
itself derived from traducere ("to lead across" or "to bring across", from trans,
"across" + ducere, "to lead" or "to bring").[7]
The Ancient Greek term for "translation", μετάφρασις (metaphrasis, "a speaking
across"), has supplied English with "metaphrase" (a "literal", or "word-for-word",
translation)—as contrasted with "paraphrase" ("a saying in other words",
from παράφρασις, paraphrasis).[7] "Metaphrase" corresponds, in one of the more
recent terminologies, to "formal equivalence"; and "paraphrase", to "dynamic
equivalence".[10]
Strictly speaking, the concept of metaphrase—of "word-for-word translation"—is
an imperfect concept, because a given word in a given language often carries
more than one meaning; and because a similar given meaning may often be
represented in a given language by more than one word. Nevertheless,
"metaphrase" and "paraphrase" may be useful as ideal concepts that mark the
extremes in the spectrum of possible approaches to translation. [b]

Theories
Western theory

John Dryden

Discussions of the theory and practice of translation reach back into antiquity and
show remarkable continuities. The ancient Greeks distinguished
between metaphrase (literal translation) and paraphrase. This distinction was
adopted by English poet and translator John Dryden (1631–1700), who described
translation as the judicious blending of these two modes of phrasing when
selecting, in the target language, "counterparts," or equivalents, for the
expressions used in the source language:
When [words] appear... literally graceful, it were an injury to the author that they
should be changed. But since... what is beautiful in one [language] is often
barbarous, nay sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit
a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words: 'tis enough if he choose
out some expression which does not vitiate the sense. [7]

Cicero

Dryden cautioned, however, against the license of "imitation", i.e., of adapted

translation: "When a painter copies from the life... he has no privilege to alter
features and lineaments..."[10]
This general formulation of the central concept of translation—equivalence—is as
adequate as any that has been proposed since Cicero and Horace, who, in 1st-
century-BCE Rome, famously and literally cautioned against translating "word
for word" (verbum pro verbo).[10]
Despite occasional theoretical diversity, the actual practice of translation has
hardly changed since antiquity. Except for some extreme metaphrasers in the
early Christian period and the Middle Ages, and adapters in various periods
(especially pre-Classical Rome, and the 18th century), translators have generally
shown prudent flexibility in seeking equivalents—"literal" where
possible, paraphrastic where necessary—for the original meaning and other
crucial "values" (e.g., style, verse form, concordance
with musical accompaniment or, in films, with speech articulatory movements) as
determined from context.[10]

Samuel Johnson

In general, translators have sought to preserve the context itself by reproducing

the original order of sememes, and hence word order—when necessary,
reinterpreting the actual grammatical structure, for example, by shifting
from active to passive voice, or vice versa. The grammatical differences between
"fixed-word-order" languages[12] (e.g. English, French, German) and "free-word-
order" languages[13] (e.g., Greek, Latin, Polish, Russian) have been no
impediment in this regard.[10] The particular syntax (sentence-structure)
characteristics of a text's source language are adjusted to the syntactic
requirements of the target language.

Martin Luther

When a target language has lacked terms that are found in a source language,
translators have borrowed those terms, thereby enriching the target language.
Thanks in great measure to the exchange of calques and loanwords between
languages, and to their importation from other languages, there are
few concepts that are "untranslatable" among the modern European
languages.[10] A greater problem, however, is translating terms relating to cultural
concepts that have no equivalent in the target language. [14] For full
comprehension, such situations require the provision of a gloss.
Generally, the greater the contact and exchange that have existed between two
languages, or between those languages and a third one, the greater is the ratio
of metaphrase to paraphrase that may be used in translating among them.
However, due to shifts in ecological niches of words, a common etymology is
sometimes misleading as a guide to current meaning in one or the other language.
For example, the English actual should not be confused with
the cognate French actuel ("present", "current"), the Polish aktualny ("present",
"current," "topical", "timely", "feasible"), [15] the Swedish aktuell ("topical",
"presently of importance"), the Russian актуальный ("urgent", "topical") or the
Dutch actueel ("current").
The translator's role as a bridge for "carrying across" values between cultures has
been discussed at least since Terence, the 2nd-century-BCE Roman adapter of
Greek comedies. The translator's role is, however, by no means a passive,
mechanical one, and so has also been compared to that of an artist. The main
ground seems to be the concept of parallel creation found in critics such
as Cicero. Dryden observed that "Translation is a type of drawing after life..."
Comparison of the translator with a musician or actor goes back at least
to Samuel Johnson's remark about Alexander Pope playing Homer on a flageolet,
while Homer himself used a bassoon.[15]

Johann Gottfried Herder

If translation be an art, it is no easy one. In the 13th century, Roger Bacon wrote
that if a translation is to be true, the translator must know both languages, as well
as the science that he is to translate; and finding that few translators did, he
wanted to do away with translation and translators altogether. [16]

Ignacy Krasicki

The translator of the Bible into German, Martin Luther (1483–1546), is credited
with being the first European to posit that one translates satisfactorily only toward
his own language. L.G. Kelly states that since Johann Gottfried Herder in the 18th
century, "it has been axiomatic" that one translates only toward his own
language.[17]
Compounding the demands on the translator is the fact that
no dictionary or thesaurus can ever be a fully adequate guide in translating. The
Scottish historian Alexander Tytler, in his Essay on the Principles of
Translation (1790), emphasized that assiduous reading is a more comprehensive
guide to a language than are dictionaries. The same point, but also
including listening to the spoken language, had earlier, in 1783, been made by the
Polish poet and grammarian Onufry Kopczyński.[18]
The translator's special role in society is described in a posthumous 1803 essay by
"Poland's La Fontaine", the Roman Catholic Primate of
Poland, poet, encyclopedist, author of the first Polish novel, and translator from
French and Greek, Ignacy Krasicki:
[T]ranslation... is in fact an art both estimable and very difficult, and therefore is
not the labor and portion of common minds; [it] should be [practiced] by those
who are themselves capable of being actors, when they see greater use in
translating the works of others than in their own works, and hold higher than their
own glory the service that they render their country. [19]
Other traditions
Due to Western colonialism and cultural dominance in recent centuries, Western
translation traditions have largely replaced other traditions. The Western
traditions draw on both ancient and medieval traditions, and on more recent
European innovations.
Though earlier approaches to translation are less commonly used today, they
retain importance when dealing with their products, as when historians view
ancient or medieval records to piece together events which took place in non-
Western or pre-Western environments. Also, though heavily influenced by
Western traditions and practiced by translators taught in Western-style
educational systems, Chinese and related translation traditions retain some
theories and philosophies unique to the Chinese tradition.
References
1. ^ The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Namit Bhatia, ed.,
1992, pp. 1,051–54.
2. ^ Christopher Kasparek, "The Translator's Endless Toil", The Polish
Review, vol. XXVIII, no. 2, 1983, pp. 84-87.
3. ^ W.J. Hutchins, Early Years in Machine Translation: Memoirs and
Biographies of Pioneers, Amsterdam, John Benjamins, 2000.
4. ^ M. Snell-Hornby, The Turns of Translation Studies: New Paradigms or
Shifting Viewpoints?, Philadelphia, John Benjamins, 2006, p. 133.
5. ^ "Rosetta Stone", The Columbia Encyclopedia, 5th ed., 1994, p. 2,361.