Theory of translation
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CHAPTER 6. Translation Models§ 1. TRANSLATION PROCESSTo start a machine translation, computer designers invited a group of experienced translators to ask them a question, seemingly naive but directly referring to their profession: how do you translate? Could you tell us in detail everything about the translation process? What goes on in a translator's brain? What operation follows what? Dmitri Zhukov, a professional translator, reminisces54 that this simple question took everyone by surprise, for it is a terribly difficult thing to explain what the process of translation is. Attempts to conceptualize the translation process have brought to life some theories, or models, of translation. The translation model is a conventional description of mental operations on speech and language units, conducted by a translator, and their explanation. Approximately, four translation models can be singled out:
Each model explains the process of translation in a restrictive way, from its own angle, and, therefore, cannot be considered comprehensive and wholly depicting the mechanism of translation. But together they make the picture of translation process more vivid and provide a translator with a set of operations to carry out translation. § 2. SITUATIONAL MODEL OF TRANSLATIONOne and the same situation is denoted by the source and target language. But each language does it in its own way. To denote means to indicate either the thing a word names or the situation a sentence names. Hence is the term of denotative meaning, or referential meaning, i.e. the meaning relating a language unit to the external world; and the term of denotation, or a particular and explicit meaning of a symbol. To translate correctly, a translator has to comprehend the situation denoted by the source text - as P. Newmark stressed, one should translate ideas, not words55 and then find the proper means of the target language to express this situation (idea). If the translator does not understand the situation denoted by the source text, his or her translation will not be adequate, which sometimes happens when an inexperienced translator attempts to translate a technical text. The main requirement of translation is that the denotation of the source text be equal to the denotation of the target text. That is why a literary word-for-word translation sometimes results in a failure of communication. Возьми хлеба в булочной. is equivalent to the English Buy some bread in the bakery. only because the receptor of the Russian sentence knows that the situation of buying in Russian can be denoted by a more general word взять whose primary equivalent (not for this context) is to take which does not contain the seme of money-paying. Thus, this model of translation emphasizes identification of the situation as the principal phase of the translation process. This theory of translation is helpful in translating neologisms and realia: to give a proper equivalent to the phrase Red Guards, which is an English calque from Chinese, we should know what notion is implied by the phrase. On finding out that this phrase means ‘members of a Chinese Communist youth movement in the late 1960’s, committed to the militant support of Mao Zedong, we come to the Russian equivalent of this historic term – хунвэйбины. As a matter of fact, this model of translation is used for attaining the equivalent on the situation level. It is the situation that determines the translation equivalent among the variables: instant coffee is equivalent to растворимый кофе but not *мгновенный кофе. The situation helps to determine whether a translation is acceptable or not. For example, we have to translate the sentence Somebody was baited by the rights. Without knowing the situation, we might translate the sentence as Кто-то подвергался травле со стороны правых as the dictionary’s translation equivalent for to bait is травить, подвергать травле. But in case we know that by the smb President Roosevelt is meant, our translation will be inappropriate and we had better use the equivalent Президент Рузвельт подвергался резким нападкам со стороны правых. A weak point of this model is that it does not explain the translation mechanismitself. One situation can be designated by various linguistic means. Why choose this or that variable over various others? The model gives no answer to this question. Another flaw in this theory is that it does not describe the systemic character of the linguistic units. Why do the elements of the idiom to lead somebody by the nose not correspond to the Russian обвести за нос? Why does this idiom correspond to the Russian держать верх над кем-то? This model does not describe the relations between the language units in a phrase or sentence and thus gives no explanation of the relations between the source and target language units. This model gives reference only to the extralinguistic situation designated by the sentence. § 3. TRANSFORMATIONAL MODEL OF TRANSLATIONWhen translating, a person transforms the source text into a new form. Transformation is converting one form into another one. There are two transformation concepts in the theory of translation. In one of them, transformation is understood as an interlinguistic process, i.e., converting the source text into the structures of the target text, which is translation proper. Special rules can be described for transforming source language structures as basic units into target language structures corresponding to the basic units. For example, to translate the “adverbial verb” one must introduce an adverb, denoting the way the action is performed, into the target language structure: She stared at me. – Она пристальносмотрела на меня. In the second concept, transformation is not understood as broadly as replacing the source language structures by the target language structures. Transformation here is part of a translation process, which has three phases56:
As is seen, this concept develops the ideas of generative grammar introduced by N. Chomsky. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this model? It is employed in contrastive analysis of two language forms that are considered to be translation equivalents, as it verbalizes what has been transformed in them and how. This model provides us with transformation techniques. It explains how we translate equivalent-lacking structures into another language. This model is important for teaching translation bacause it recommends that one transform a complex structure into a simple one. However, a disadvantage of this model consists in inability to explain the choice of the transformation made, especially at the third synthesis phase. It does not explain the facts of translation equivalence on the situational level. It also ignores sociocultural and extralinguistic aspects of translation. § 4. SEMANTIC MODEL OF TRANSLATIONThis model places special emphasis on semantic structures of the source and target texts. According to it, translation is conveying the meaning of the source text by the target text. The two texts can be called equivalent in meaning if their semantic components are close or identical. In order to translate, one must single out the meaningful elements of the original and then choose the target language units that most closely express the same content elements. (This model is sometimes called Content-Text Model.57) For this procedure, a componential (or seme) analysis is widely employed. Like in the transformation model, the process of translation is subdivided into some phases:
This model gives a good explanation of the translation equivalence and of the reasons for translation failures when irrelevant (or not all relevant) semes have been taken into consideration. It explains the mechanism of selecting one variable among synonyms: that synonym is chosen which has the greatest number of relevant semes similar to the source language word. But the insufficiency of this model is that the process of singling out semes is a very difficult one. It does not explain the cases of situational equivalence - why instant coffee is equal to растворимый кофе, with their semes not coinciding? It also ignores connotations of the word and the function of the text. § 5. PSYCHOLINGUISTIC MODEL OF TRANSLATIONTranslation is a kind of speech event. And it develops according to the psychological rules of speech event.58 The scheme of the speech event consists of the following phases:
Translation is developed according to these phases: a translator comprehends the message (motif), transforms the idea of the message into his/her own inner speech program, then outlays this inner code into the target text. The point of this theory is that it considers translation among speaking, listening, reading and writing as a speech event. But there is evidence to suggest that translators and interpreters listen and read, speak and write in a different way from other language users, basically because they operate under a different set of constraints.59 While a monolingual receiver is sender-oriented, paying attention to the speaker's/writer's message in order to respond to it, the translator is essentially receiver-oriented, paying attention to the sender's message in order to re-transmit it to the receiver of the target-text, supressing, at the same time, personal reactions to the message. There are two essential stages specific to the process of translating and interpreting: analysis and synthesis60 – and a third stage, revision, available only to the translator working with the written text. During the analysis stage, the translator reads/listens to the source text, drawing on background knowledge, to comprehend features contained in the text. During synthesis, the target text is produced. Then the draft written translation is revised /edited. However, the explanational force of this model is very restricted, inner speech being the globally disputable problem in both psychology and linguistics. NOTES TO PART I |