Theories of Translation

Theories of Translation2
 1- Text type theory
This theory proposed by Katharina Reiss in 1970s. The theory focuses on the
translation of the text and text type. It is based on the concept of equivalence but
views the text , rather than the word or sentence as the level at which
communication is achieved and at which equivalence must be sought. Her functional
approach aimed initially at systematizing the assessment of translations. It
borrows from the (1934/1965) categorization of the three functions of language by
German psychologist and linguist Karl Bühler. These functions are:
Text Functions: These functions are:

Informative function

Expressive function
Appellative function
Characteristics of Text Type:
1-informative text: Plain communication of facts
2-expressive text : Creative Composition
3-operative text : Inducing behavioural responses
4-Audio medial text: films and visual and spoken
advertisements
 ‘Specific translation methods according to text
type’
The TT of an informative text should transmit the full referential or
conceptual content of the ST.

The TT of an expressive text should transmit the aesthetic and artistic form of the
ST.

The TT of an operative text should produce the desired response in the TT

receiver.

Audio-medial texts require what Reiss calls the ‘supplementary’

method, supplementing written words with visual images and music.
Reiss also lists a series of intralinguistic and
extralinguistic
instruction criteria:
Intralinguistic criteria – semantic, lexical, grammatical and
stylistic feature

Extralinguistic criteria – situation, subject field, time, place,

receiver, sender and affective implication (humor, irony,
emotion, etc)
Criticisms

Why there should only be three types of language function.?

How Reiss’s proposed translation methods are to be applied in the case

of a specific text?

Business and financial texts in English contain a large number of simple

and complex metaphors.
2-Translatorial action theory
This theory was proposed by Justa Holz Manttari. It takes up theory
of communication and theory of action. It aims at creating
communication between people of different language and cultutre. It
views translation as purpose-driven and outcome- oriented human
interaction. It construes the process of translation as ‘message-
transmitter compounds" that involve intercultural transfer. It views
interlingual translation and translatorial action from ST and as
communicative process involves a list of players and roles:
 the initiator: the company or individual who needs the translation;

the commissioner: the individual or agency who contacts the translator;

the ST producer: the individual(s) within the company who write(s) the ST, and who
are not necessarily involved in the TT production;

the TT producer: the translator(s) and the translation agency or department;

the TT user: the person who uses the TT – for example, a teacher using a translated
textbook or a rep using sales brochures;

the TT receiver: the final recipient of the TT – for example, the students using the
textbook in the teacher’s class or clients reading the translated sales brochures.
Each one of these players have a specific goal.
Moreover, this theory focus on producing TT
functionally committed to the TT user. Relevant
features have been considered in this theory:

(1)Content: includes facture information and

communication strategy.

(2)Form: includes terminologies, cohesive elements.

Criticisms

¾ The complexity of its jargon (for example message-

transmitter compounds).
¾ Fails to consider cultural difference
3-Skopos theory

This theory was proposed by Hans Vermeer.

Skopos is a Greek word for aim or purpose. It is a
technical term for the purpose of translation. the
Vermeer introduced term "translatum" for a believes
target text. Vermeer that the translator
should define the function of translation.
Vemeer set five basic rules for translation:
 A translational action is determined by its skopos.

It is an offer of information in a target culture and TL concerning an offer of

information in a source culture and SL.
A TT does not initiate an offer of information in a clearly reversible way. A TT

must be internally coherent.

A TT must be coherent with the ST.

The five rules above stand in hierarchical order, with the skopos rule
predominating
Functional adequacy:

(a) the coherence rule, linked to internal textual coherence; and

(b) the fidelity rule, linked to intertextual coherence with the ST.

(1)The coherence rule states that the TT must be interpretable as

coherent with the TT receiver’s situation.
(2)The fidelity rule merely states that there must be coherence between
the TT and the ST
Criticism:
What purports to be a ‘general’ theory is in fact only valid for non-literary texts.

Reiss’s text type approach and Vermeer’s skopos theory consider different
phenomena and cannot be lumped together.

Jargon such as Translatum does little to further translation theory where

workable terms (e.g. target text) already exist.

Skopos theory does not pay sufficient attention to the linguistic nature of the ST
nor to the reproduction of micro-level features in the TT.
4- Polysystem theory
Polysystem theory was developed in the 1970s by the Israeli scholar Itamar
Even-Zohar borrowing ideas from the Russian Formalists of the 1920s and
the Czech Structuralists of the 1930s and 1940s, who had worked on literary
historiography and linguistics.

For the Formalists, a literary work was not studied in isolation but as part
of a literary system, which itself is defined as ‘a system of functions of the
literary order which are in continual interrelationship with other orders’.

Literature is thus part of the social, cultural, literary and historical

framework and the key concept is that of the system.
Even-Zohar emphasizes that translated literature operates as a system in itself:

¾in the way the TL culture selects works for translation;

in the way translation norms, behaviour and policies are influenced by other
co-systems.

The term polysystem. This is defined by EvenZohar as: a

multiple system, a system of various systems which intersect with each other
and partly overlap, using concurrently different options, yet functioning as one
structured whole, whose members are interdependent.
Even-Zohar gives three major cases when translated literature occupies the
primary position:

When a ‘young’ literature is being established.

When a literature is ‘peripheral’ or ‘weak’ and it imports those literary
types which it is lacking.

when there is a vacuum in the literature of the country.

If translated literature assumes a secondary position, then it represents a
peripheral system within the polysystem. Gentzler (2001: 118–20 and 123–5)
stresses the way polysystem
theory represents an important advance for translation studies. The
advantages of this are several:

literature itself is studied alongside the social, historical and cultural

forces; Even-Zohar moves away from the isolated study of individual
texts towards the study of translation within the cultural and literary
systems in which it functions; the non- prescriptive definition of
equivalence and adequacy allows for variation according to the social,
historical and cultural situation of the text.
Criticism
Gentzler (ibid.: 120–3) also outlines criticisms of polysystem theory. These include:

(1)overgeneralization to ‘universal laws’ of translation based on relatively little

evidence;

(2)an over-reliance on an historically based Formalist model which, following Even-

Zohar’s own model of evolving trends, might be inappropriate for translated texts in
the 1970s and beyond;

(3)the tendency to focus on the abstract model rather than the ‘real-life’ constraints
placed on texts and translators;
(4) the question as to how far the supposed scientific model is really objective.
5-Postcolonial Theory
 This theory was proposed by Edward Said/Spivak. It
focuses on translating literature after the era of
colonialism. The colonialism concept refers to the
conquest made by the European Empires to many
countries around the world including Africa, America
and Asia.
Post-colonialism is generally used to cover studies of the
history of the former colonies, studies of powerful
European empires, resistance to the colonialist powers
and, more broadly, studies of the effect of the imbalance
of power relations between colonized and colonizer.
Spivak indicates the ideological consequences
of the translation of ‘Third World’ literature
into English and the distortion this entails.
Spivak has addressed ‘The politics of translation’:

(1) Feminist

(2) Post-colonialist

(3) Poststructuralist approaches.

Tensions between the different approaches are
highlighted, with Spivak speaking out against
western feminists who expect feminist writing from
outside Europe to be translated into the language of
power, English.
What is translatese?

According to Spivak’s view, ‘translatese,’ eliminates the

identity of individuals and cultures that are politically
less powerful and leads to a standardization of very
different voices:
Criticism
There is a power imbalance between different languages;

The concepts underlying much of western translation theory are flawed (‘its notions
of text, author, and meaning are based on an unproblematic, naively
representational theory of language’);

The ‘humanistic enterprise’ of translation needs to be questioned, since translation

in the colonial context builds a conceptual image of colonial domination into the
discourse of western philosophy.
Niranjana’s recommendations for action,

In general, the postcolonial translator must call into

question every aspect of colonialism and liberal
nationalism.

Specifically, Niranjana calls for an ‘interventionist’

approach from the translator.
 Saussure distinguished between the linguistic system (langue) and
specific individual utterances (parole). Central to his theory
of langue, he differentiated between the 'signifier' (the spoken and
written signal)
and the 'signified' (the concept), which together create the linguistic
'sign'.
 linguistic universalism

considers that, although languages

may differ in the way they convey meaning and in the surface
realizations of that
meaning, there is a (more or less) shared way of thinking and
experiencing the
world
 linguistic relativity or determinism
n its strongest
form claims that differences in languages shape different
conceptualizations of
the world
Pinker (1994: 57-65; 2007: 124-51), who points out that the
vocabulary of
a language simply reflects what speakers need for everyday
life. The absence of
a word in a language does not mean that a concept cannot be
perceived -
someone from a hot climate can be shown slush and snow and
can notice the
difference.
 Jakobson's description (ibid.), interlingual translation

involves 'substitut[ing]
messages in one language not for separate code-units but for entire
messages in
some other language'.
For the message to be 'equivalent' in ST and TT, the
code-units will necessarily be different since they belong to two different
sign
systems (languages) which partition reality differently
 equivalence, For Jakobson

cross-linguistic differences, which underlie the

concept of equivalence, centre around obligatory grammatical and lexical forms:
'Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may
convey'.
 Toward a Science of
Translating (Nida 1964a

Nida
attempts to move Bible translation into a more scientific era by incorporating
recent work in linguistics. His more systematic approach borrows theoretical
concepts and terminology both from semantics and pragmatics and from Noam
Chomsky's work on syntactic structure which formed the theory of a universal
generative-transformational grammar (Chomsky 1957, 1965).)
 kernel sentences

which are simple, active, declarative sentences that require

the minimum of transformation

Nida and Taber (ibid.: 39) claim that all languages have between six and a dozen
basic kernel structures and 'agree far more on the level of kernels than on the
level of more elaborate structures' such as word order. Kernels are the level at
which the message is transferred into the receptor language before being transformed
into the surface structure in a process of: (1) 'literal transfer'; (2) 'minimal
transfer'; and (3) 'literary transfer'.
 Nida incorporates key features of Chomsky's model into his 'science' of translation

the
surface structure of the ST is
analysed : into the basic elements of the deep structure;
these are
'transferred' : in the translation process and then 'restructured' :semantically and stylistically into
the surface structure of the
'scientific approaches to meaning' related to work that had been carried
out by theorists in semantics and pragmatics

Central to Nida's work is the move

away from the old idea that a word has a fixed meaning and towards a
functional
definition of meaning in which a word 'acquires' meaning through its
context and
can produce varying responses according to culture.
 Linguistic meaning
the relationship between different linguistic structures,
borrowing elements of Chomsky's model. Nida (ibid.: 59) provides
examples to show how the meaning crucially differs even where
similar
classes of words are used.:
 Referential meaning

the denotative 'dictionary' meaning. Thus, son

denotes a male child
 Emotive or connotative meaning

the associations a word produces.

So, in the phrase 'Don't worry about that, son', the word son is a
term of
endearment or may in some contexts be patronizing
 hierarchical structuring

which differentiates series of words according to

their level (for instance, the superordinate animal
and its hyponyms goat, dog,
cow, etc.)
 componential analysis

The latter seek to identify

and discriminate specific features of a range of
related words. The results can be
plotted visually to assist in making an overall
comparison.( grandmother,mother)
 semantic structure analysis

in which Nida (ibid.:

107) separates out visually the different meanings of spirit ('demons', 'angels',
'gods', 'ghost', 'ethos', 'alcohol', etc.) according to their characteristics (human
vs. non-human, good vs. bad, etc.). The central idea of this analysis is to encourage
the trainee translator to realize that the sense of a complex semantic term such as
spirit (or, to take another example, bachelor) varies and most particularly is 'conditioned'
by its context
 Formal equivalence:

Formal equivalence focuses attention on the

message itself, in both form and content . . . One is concerned that the
message in the receptor language should match as closely as possible
the different elements in the source language
keenly oriented towards the ST structure, which exerts strong
influence in determining accuracy and correctness.
This type of translation will often be used in an
academic or legal environment and allows the reader closer access to the
language and customs of the source culture.
 Dynamic equivalence:

Dynamic, later 'functional', equivalence is based

on what Nida calls 'the principle of equivalent effect', where 'the relationship
between receptor and message should be substantially the same
as that which existed between the original receptors and the message

This receptor-oriented approach considers adjustments of

grammar, of lexicon and of cultural references to be essential in order to achieve
naturalness. The TT language should not show interference from the SL, and the
'foreignness' of the ST setting is minimized
 equivalent
effect or response. (Nida)

(1) making sense;

(2) conveying the spirit and manner of the original;
(3) having a natural and easy form of expression;
(4) producing a similar response.
 importance of Nida's work

introducing a receptor-based (or reader-based) orientation to

translation
theory.
 Newmark (1916-2011

Newmark departs from Nida's receptororiented

line. He feels that the success of equivalent effect is 'illusory' and that 'the
conflict of loyalties, the gap between emphasis on source and target language, will
always remain as the overriding problem in translation theory and practice'
(Newmark 1981: 38). Newmark suggests narrowing the gap by replacing the old
terms with those of 'semantic' and 'communicative' translation:)'
 Communicative translation

attempts to produce on its readers an effect as close

as possible to that obtained on the readers of the
original
 Semantic translation

attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and

syntactic structures of the
second language allow, the exact contextual
meaning of the original.