Lecture 1. Communicative approach in translation.

1. Communicative aspect of translation.

2. Adequacy in translation.
3. Translation mistakes.
4. Equivalence in translation.
1. Communicative aspects of translation.
Communication between different individuals and nations is not always easy,
especially when more than one language is involved. The job of the translator and / or
interpreter is to try to bridge the gap between two foreign languages.
Translation is undoubtedly a communicative device. Some researchers postulate
an autonomous status for translation studies, arguing that these studies bring together
work in a wide variety of fields, including literary study, anthropology, psychology,
and linguistics. Others claim that the domain of translation studies is an important
sub-branch of applied linguistics. Proponents of both opinions would have to admit,
however, that the field of translation studies has multidisciplinary dimensions and
aspects.
The term “translation” normally refers to written materials but is also an umbrella
term used for all tasks where elements of a text of one language (the source language,
SL the language being translated from) are molded into a text of another language
(the target language, TL the language being translated into), whether the medium is
written, spoken, or signed. There are specific professional contexts where a
distinction is made between people who work with the spoken or signed language
(interpreters), and those who work with the written language (translators).
Translation Principles
Much valuable work has been carried out by translatologists on the methodical
scrutiny of translation, establishing interesting but often contradictory translation
principles. Savory’s (1968: 54) collection includes the following:
• a translation must give the words of the original;
• a translation must give the ideas of the original;
• a translation should read like an original work;
• a translation should read like a translation;
• a translation may add to or omit from the original;
• a translation may never add to or omit from the original.
The idea underlying these statements is to postulate what is “right,” but
contradictory statements such as these can obviously not all be right at the same time.
However, each of these postulates can be valid in its own right. To take an extreme
interpretation of the first pair of principles as an example: The demand that “a
translation must give the words of the original” preserving the successive units of the
source text and arranging them in order of occurrence irrespective of the “normal”
grammatical sequence of units in the TL (i.e., an interlinear translation) is justifiable
if the aim is to carry out comparative linguistic research:
On the word level, Dutch daarmee, for instance, corresponds to English
therewith, cf.(compare)
a. Daarmee hebben we het gedaan, niet met de hamer.
b. Therewith have we it done, not with the hammer
The English sentence gives “the words of the original.” If, however, the main
purpose of a translation is to describe to the hearer a certain state of affairs as closely
as possible, then “a translation must give the ideas of the original.” Along these lines,
Hannay (1989: 224ff) points out that the standard translation of Dutch daarmee “is
not the archaic therewith but with it / with that / with them, depending on the nature
of the referent . . . :
(2) c. ‘That’s what we did it with, not the hammer.’”
Communicative aspect of translation.
Thus, in order to communicate, the message sender formulates the mental content
of his or her message using subject thesaurus, encodes it using the verbal forms of
language thesaurus, and conveys it to the message recipient, who decodes the
message also using language thesaurus and interprets the message using subject
thesaurus as well.
This is a simple description of monolingual communication.
It is very important to understand that the thesauruses of message sender and
recipient may be different to a greater or lesser degree, and that is why we sometimes
do not understand each other even when we think we are speaking one and the same
language.
So, in regular communication there are two actors, sender and recipient, and each of
them uses two thesauruses (Although they use the same language their underlying
knowledge bases may differ).
In special bilingual communication (i.e. translation), we have three actors: sender,
recipient, and intermediary (translator).
The translator has two language thesauruses (source and target one) and performs two
functions: decodes the source message and encodes the target one to be received by
the recipient (end user of the translation).
O. Kade's communicational theory of translation describes the process of translation
as an act of special bilingual communication in which the translator acts as a special
communication intermediary, making it possible to understand a message sent in a
different language.
One may note that the communicational approach pays special attention to the
aspects of translation relating to the act of communication, whereas the translation
process as such remains unspecified, and one may only presume that it proceeds
either by a transformational or denotative path.
However, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the communicational aspect
in the success of translation.
To understand this better let us consider an example of message formulation
(encoding), message translation (encoding/decoding), and message receipt
(decoding).
Let the original message expressed by a native speaker of English (encoded using the
English language as a code to convey the mental content of the message) be:
Several new schools appeared in the area.
Let us assume then that the message sender, being a fisherman and using relevant
subject thesaurus, by schools meant large number of fish swimming together rather
than institutions for educating children, and the correct translation then had to be:
У районі з’явились нові косяки pu6u whereas the translator who presumably did not
have relevant information in his subject thesaurus translated schools as institutions
for educating children:
У районі з’явились нові школи, which naturally lead to misunderstanding
(miscommunication).
The above example shows a case of miscommunication based on the insufficiency of
extralinguistic information. However, there are also cases of miscommunication
caused by the insufficiency of linguistic information.
This example is, of course, an exaggeration, but it clearly illustrates a dividing line
between linguistic and extralinguistic information in translation as visualized by the
communicational approach to translation.
According to communicational approach translation is a message sent by a
translator to a particular user and the adequacy of translation depends on similarity
of their background information rather than only on linguistic correctness.
The communicational approach highlights a very important aspect of translation - the
matching of thesauruses. Translation may achieve its ultimate target of rendering a
piece of information only if the translator knows the users' language and the subject
matter of the translation well enough (i.e. if the translator's language and subject
thesauruses are sufficiently complete). This may seem self-evident, but should always
be kept in mind, because all translation mistakes result from the insufficiencies of the
thesauruses.

2. Adequancy in translation

Everybody knows that a translator is responsible for an adequate fiction

translation. Proper fiction translation is the indicator of the translator’s talent, which
shows the accumulation of all the background information about the writer and
expresses all the beauty of the source language into the target one. A translator should
be a good psychologist of the writer, understand his attitude to the novel and know
the peculiarities of the target language.
 Adequate translation is not about word-to-word translation or ‘some translator’s
thoughts on the subject of the novel’. Fiction translation shows the balance between
understanding and the language structure. If no one assesses fiction adaptation for its
adequacy, the readers will never learn if they read a good translation or a bad one.
What does the adequacy mean? How does it influence translation?
Translation quality is determined with its adequacy or completeness. The
adequacy stands for the correspondence of the target text to the source text, including
the expressive means in translation.
Certain lexical and grammar elements of the source text can be translated with the
various variants if these variants are suitable for the text creation. Separate phrases,
sentences and paragraphs should be rendered with the knowledge of the whole source
text context. Not only some phrases determine the target text translation, but also
complete text comprehension defines some separate phrases.
Adequate translation creates specific difficulties for a translator. A translator
should correlate the target language and his text comprehension. If we believe that
mentality thinking of all the people is the same, independently on the language, the
translation will be performed in one way. If we stick to the point, that there are
significant changes between the languages, the translation will be performed
differently. Translation shows the mentality of the source language with the
comprehensible methods of the target language.
For example, one translator has the determination to make his translation
universally understandable. He uses some general notions, acceptable and known all
over the world. However, the text may lose some specific features, which lead to the
problems of the understanding not only the written text but also the text ‘between the
lines’.
Thus, the translator shows only one side of the translation. The text should be
‘adapted’ for a target language reader. The translator tries to smooth the text, and
these developments decrease its quality as the text loses idiomaticity and authenticity.
Name translation always creates specific difficulty. Names characterise the country,
where the events take place, the epoch, the time the book was written. Besides, the
particular feature of the fiction translation is a characterisation of the cultural and
temporal differences. The fiction translation reflects the culture, the time, the
language and style of the author, his conditions of life. The writer uses particular
phenomena, which create a unique atmosphere and characterise the time in the book.
These realia describe only the source language culture and may have another
meaning in the target language.
When a translator does a universal translation with the understandable realia in
both languages, and a reader may come to think the events in the book can happen in
any other country. On the one hand, the translation may lose authenticity, though, on
the other hand, the reader of the target language will understand some notions
without particular reference to historical facts. However, even knowledge of the
source text history will add more benefits to the translation.
When a translator does not have enough figurative means to translate the
source text, he explains some notions or realia in the notes and comments. Sometimes
the comments have additional particular information, though more frequently they
sound like ‘annotations' to some historical facts and events. An explanation does not
always mean adaptation. If a translator tries to find the analogous phrase, idiomatic
expression in the context of the target language, the translation will be closer to
author's intentions.
Sometimes a translator wants to preserve the author’s style and show it, with the help
of specific word order, so he keeps the word order of the source text unchanged.
Unfortunately, it produces a reverse effect, the sentences become long, hard to
understand and the target text is getting clumsy. Notwithstanding, that the reader
perceives everything written, the reader ‘feels' the text is not native. Word by word
translation makes the novel even more complicated to comprehend.
The translator may pay attention to each detail in the process of translation,
though sometimes the translation may sound too verbal. There should be more
expressive and implicit meanings. Sometimes translators use transliteration,
transcription, semantic modification, description, comments, and mixed translation to
escape problems with the non-standard lexical units.
When a lexical unit meaning in the target language does not coincide with the
meaning in the source text, a translator should be very careful with the definition in
the target text. Some confusion may cause different associations of the source
language.
Grammar transformations can be used in the structure of the source language when
the original text contains differences in comparison with the possible construction of
the target language. Translators use such transformations in case of the verb forms
and grammar units change. Such conversions are necessary to produce the required
effect in the target text. A translator may substitute the structure of the sentence, may
use antonymic translation, zero translation (omittance of the translation in the target
language text in order to keep the context) to preserve the author’s intentions.
Stylistic techniques of the translation help to mark individual units in the
source text. Some stylistic groups can not be translated, as they reflect a unique
author's style. Some of them can be converted partially, only a small part of the
stylistic units can be rendered without any change in the target language. It means
that adequate text creation is closely connected with the change or substitution of
some stylistic groups. For example, the image can be replaced; the word order can be
modified, figure speech may be changed, word-to-word translation can be used to
achieve the goal.
Each language has its structure, different metaphoric expressions, idiomaticity.
Sometimes these mistakes are connected with the translator´s purposes. Some
translators believe that they should strictly follow the rules of the source text and
express it in the target text. They keep the word order, and they choose the most
similar in the phrases. However, the words are used in a figurative sense, or even in a
satirical meaning. A translator should know the context of the book, how it is related
to the writer's circumstances and conditions of life.
The main translator’s function are:
to comprehend the text of another culture,
to evaluate comprehensibility
to express it with the means of the target language.
The translator should be able to represent the ideas of the source language with
the reasonable and correct methods of the target language.
The quality of the translation is determined with the following factors:
a) how translator understands the text
b) his knowledge of cross-cultural differences.
The main task of the translation is to preserve the meaning of the source text and
reflect it in the target text. The more difficult the novel for understanding in the
source language, the harder it is to perform an adequate translation of high quality.
Only correct knowledge of the source text can help us to create the universal image,
which the author has wanted to show.
3. Translation mistakes
Translation mistakes can be differentiated as speech error and functional errors.
Speech errors can be detected in the structure of the language and in the norm of the
speech. They show the violations of the speech and verbal rules.
Functional errors cover so-called deviations of the source text, influencing the
sense of the unit. These deviations are divided into ‘distortions' and ‘discrepancies'
depending upon the gravity of the mistake. Distortions are the mistakes in the text,
which provide the wrong information of the source text in the target text. Some
problems can appear if the meaning of the target text is not clear. Such deviations can
be connected with the transliteration in the translation when some phenomenon of the
source language is transferred into the target language without any additional
information. For example, some historical persons of one country can be unknown in
another country, the names of some shops, when translator does not provide extra
information to the reader or doesn’t make a comment. Usually, descriptive translation
helps to solve this difficulty.
Speech errors do not distort the meaning of the source text, as the reader can
understand the phrase and can reconstruct a correct version of the lexical and
grammar forms. It may happen when a translator works with the native language as a
target one. Typically, there are mistakes, arising out of violations of the speech
norms. Word-to-word translation and imitation of the original text, mechanical
transfer of some peculiarities of the source language should be translated partially.
Though sometimes the author deliberately makes speech errors in the source
language to characterise the situation in the text.
Lexical and grammar analysis of the translation will help to single out specific
difficulties in interpretation and find out the ways out to avoid them. First of all,
translation means should be selected not on the base of the equivalent, but its
situational equivalent. The intention of the source text plays a very significant role
and should be understood correctly. All languages differ, this is why a translator
should consider the structure of the language with the help of which he's going to
express the idea of the source language. Word-to-word translation will lead to the
imitation of the source text. The more the translator knows about the types of
mistakes, the better he will understand the possibilities to escape them.
Comparing some translations, it is quite natural, that any translation may contain
some mistakes of different types. A translator should consider this to create an
adequate interpretation, to preserve the source text meaning and reflect it in the target
text. Sometimes translators use descriptive translation and generalisation in awkward
situations, which help to indicate the intention of the source text. If some phrases are
not clearly understood in the source language, this ambiguity is preserved in the
target text with the possible means of the target language.
When the source text contains tropology, the translator may lose the right intentions
and distort the source text because of the wrong comprehension. For example, when
some words are used in a figurative sense. While a translator “softens” and replaces
the word, he changes the image of the source text and loses it in the target language.
Or the opposite situation. When the image is weak in the source text, and in the
translation some extra colour is added. The balance between the original version and
the translation can be lost. The translator should select the words very thoroughly to
let the reader understand the text correctly. Sometimes translations make the target
text somewhat difficult to understand. Translators have a lot of sources to keep this
balance: transpositions, breaking the sentences, substitution of some original forms. If
we follow the principles of the source language, we can run a to do a word-to-word
translation. The changes in the target text are justified.
Each translator has his understanding and views upon the novel. It is possible to
decrease the mistakes, starting with the cross-cultural concepts up to differences in
stylistics. These are two main issues, which form the entire piece of work. To
emphasise the original text structure and following the author's style will make the
target text resemble the original. Following translation adequacy balance is essential.
Translation adequacy requires a precise and accurate transfer of the meaning from the
source language into the target one.
Mistakes in the translation can be classified in several groups of translator
competence. When a translator misunderstands some words and finds it difficult to
get the text, can not comprehend the logical structure of the book. When a translator
does not understand the difference of the language structure and speech and does not
 know how to transform phrases into the target language. Sometimes a translator may
misunderstand the author and his intentions and may fail to identify the author's
evaluation in the text of the source language. Finally, a translator may choose the
wrong word due to insufficient competence in the target language.
Any translation is a responsibility because a translator creates his text in the eye of a
target- language reader. In the first place, the translator should show the way the
author understands the novel. A translator should make some preliminary analysis to
‘feel' the text. The text should be equally understandable and equally vague and
complicated as the writer planned it to be. This principal task of a translator is to
choose exact words and stylistic means in the target text to show all the beauty of the
source text.
4. Equivalence in translation
Translation equivalence does not mean that source and target texts are identical. It
is a degree of similarity between source and target texts, measured on a certain level.
Viewed from the semiotic angle, the source and target texts can be identical
pragmatically, semantically and structurally.
Every text should be equivalent to the source text pragmatically, which means that
the both texts should have one and the same communicative function. The target text
should have the same impact upon the receptor as the source text has.
Semantic identity implies describing the same situation, using similar lexical meaning
of the units, and similar grammatical meaning of the elements.
Structural similarity presupposes the closest possible formal correspondence between
the source text and the target text.
According to V. Komissarov, one can distinguish five levels of equivalence:
pragmatic, situational, lexical (semantic), grammatical, structural levels.
2. Pragmatic level
First and foremost, the translation must retain the same communicative function as
the source text.
The description and enumeration of speech functions can be found in the work by R.
Jakobson, who pointed out the following:
 informative function, i.e. conveying
information: Лаври мого конкурента не дають мені спати. – I am green with
envy because of the success of my competitor.
 emotive function, i.e. expressing the speaker’s emotions: І до якого
місця мені такий друг? – What on earth do I need such a friend for?
 conative function, i.e. expressing one’s will: Could you do me a favor, please?
– Будь ласка, зробіть мені послугу!
 phatic function, i.e. making communicative contact: How do you do!
– Здраствуйте!
 metalingual function, i.e. describing language features: Don’t trouble trouble until
trouble troubles you. – Не чіпай лихо, доки воно тихе!.
 poetic function, i.e. aesthetic impact:
Tiger Tiger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? (W.Blake)
Тигре! Тигре! Палахкочеш
В темних нетрях серед ночі.
Які руки, очі вічні
Цю створили симетричність? (Пер. В.Кейс)
These sentences have only one thing in common: general intent of communication,
communication aim, or function. At first glance, the source and target texts have no
obvious logical connection; they usually designate different situations, have no
common semes (i.e. smallest components of meaning), and have different grammar
structures.
3. Situational level
The source and the target texts can describe the same situation from different angles
with different words and structures:
I meant no harm. – Вибачте, я ненавмисно.(the situation in the bus);
Who shall I say is calling? – Хто його запитує? (the situation on the phone);
Wet paint. – Обережно: пофарбовано! (the situation in the park).
There are no parallel lexical or structural units in these counterparts. Therefore, their
content is different, the word semes are different, grammar relations between the
sentence components are different. Nevertheless, the utterances correspond to each
other in their communicative functions and in the similarity of the described situation.
Because of this identity, V. Komissarov calls this type of equivalence «identification
of the situation».
Frequently one and the same situation is referred to in different languages. This is
particularly true of set phrases: Fragile. – Обережно: скло! Beware of the dog!
– Обережно, зла собака! Push/Pull – Від себе/До себе.
Some situations cannot be translated: for example, Смачного! has no corresponding
phrase in English. In place of this lacuna, English people use the French idiom Bon
appetit!. There is also no equivalent for the Ukrainian З легким паром!.
4. Semantic paraphrase
Dealing with the transformation of meaning implies a semantic variation, or semantic
paraphrase of the source language utterance. For example, the sentence in the original
can be translated as if the situation were viewed from a different angle: He was not
unlike his mother. – Він був досить схожий на свою маму. He is my son.
– Я – мама цього хлопчика. Orsome words of the source language sentence are
paraphrased in translation: After her illness, she became as skinny as a toothpick.
– Після хвороби вона стала худа, наче тріска. Or the target sentence can
verbalize the idea in more detail than the source language
sentence: Сьогодні Борису не до жартів. – Boris is in no mood for joking today.
On this level of equivalence, the source and the target sentences have the same
function (aim), they describe the same situation, and their meanings are
approximately identical, whereas their grammar structures are different. As is known,
the meaning of each word consists of semes, the smallest sense component. The set
of semes in the source and target sentences is the same, but they are grouped
differently and, therefore, are verbalized in different ways and do not have the same
syntactic structure.
V. Komissarov states that on this level the two sentences match because they have
approximately the same method of the situation description.
5. Transformational equivalence
On this level, the target and the source language sentences manifest grammar
transformations: the passive predicate can be translated by the active: The port can be
entered by big ships only in tide.
– Великі кораблі можуть заходити в порт тільки під час приливу. Likewise,
part of speech can be changed in translation: We had a long walk. – Йшли ми
довго. Or the structure of the sentence can be modified: Jane was heard playing the
piano. – Було чути, як Джейн грала на піаніно, where the sentence is translated
by a complex one). Any other change of the grammar meaning within the sentence
testifies to the equivalence on the transformational level, which is called by V.
Komissarov the level of the invariant meaning of the syntactic structure.
This level of equivalence presupposes retention of the utterance function, the
description of the same situation, the same meaning of the source and target
sentences, and a very close (but variable) grammatical meaning.
6. Lexical and grammatical equivalence
On this level, the most possible semantic similarity between the source and target
sentences is found:
Every mother loves her children. – Кожна мати любить своїх дітей.
I will write you every week. – Я буду писати тобі кожен тиждень.
As a matter of fact, this is a word for word translation where each word and the
whole structure retains its lexical and grammatical meaning, the situation designated
by the sentences is identical, and the communicative function of the utterances is the
same. Every form of the target sentence is equal, with no variations, to that of the
source language sentence.
Therefore, this level might be called the level of formal equivalence.
The relationship between the levels of equivalence is not random. Each
subsequent level presupposes a preceding one. Thus, the level of lexical and
grammatical equivalence implies that the phrases have the same grammatical and
lexical meanings (transformation and semantic equivalence), refer to the same
situation, and have the same function. Phrases equivalent at the semantic level have
similar semantics, describe the same situation and perform the same function;
however, they do not have close grammatical meaning, since this level of equivalence
is higher than the transformational level. Thus, the hierarchy observed between the
level of equivalence is unilateral, the lower levels presupposing the higher ones, but
not the other way about.