vinay & Darbelt's Model

Case Studies

Case study applying Vinay and Darbelnet’s model (see Chapter 4)

By Idris Mansor, Universiti Sains Malaysia

In investigating procedures involved in the process of translating cultural elements of Arabic into Malay, a modified version of translation procedures from the classic taxonomy of Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1995) is employed. Three specific and representative cultural fields have been selected from the classical Arabic travel text Rihlat Ibn Battuta (RIB) and its modern Malay translation Pengembaraan Ibn Battutah (PIB) (2003). Those cultural elements are religious items, food/drink and clothing. A total number of 257 instances have been selected from religious items, 206 instances of food/drink and 116 instances of clothing. After the data from the source text (ST) are collected and mapped into equivalents in the target text (TT), a comparative analysis is then manually conducted between the ST and the TT to identify relationship between them, and subsequently the translation procedures which have been applied by the translators (examples are in Table 1).

The following table shows the results of the analysis of those three cultural elements:

Table 1: Comparative analysis of the translation of religious items, food /drink, and clothing.

Religious items	Food and drink items	Clothing items
Borrowing	46.6%	Explicitation	28.5%	Explicitation	29.7%
Literal translation	23.0%	Literal translation	26.9%	Borrowing	23.9%
Explicitation	17.4%	Borrowing	20.7%	Generalization	22.6%
Transposition	5.9%	Generalization	15.7%	Literal translation	19.3%
Généralisation	2.9%	Calque	5.6%	Calque	2.6%
Deletion	2.1%	Transposition	2.6%	Transposition	1.9%
Modulation	1.2%
Calque	0.9%

Table 2: Examples of cultural items that have been translated into the TT categorized according to translation procedures proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1995).

ST	TT	Procedure
تنورة (RIB 552)               [tannūrah]	tannurah (PIB 633) [tannurah] (a type of Indian garment)	Borrowing
خزائن رحمتک (RIB 43) [khazā’in] [raḥmatik] [treasury] [your compassion]	perbendaharaan rahmatmu (PIB 30) [treasury] [your compassion]	Calque
الزیت (180 RIB )                [al-zayt] [al-zayt] [oil]	Minyak (PIB 188) [oil]	Literal translation
وعلى رأسها مقنعة (RIB 337) [wa-calā ra’sihā maqnacah] [and on her head veil]	Wanita itu bertudung (PIB 419) [lady that wearing veil]	Transposition
یکثرون السواک (RIB 169)  [yukthirūn] [al-siwāk] [they increase the frequency] [brush teeth]	Mereka […] rajin bersiwak (PIB 171) [they] […] [diligently] [brush their teeth]	Modulation
الثقة (RIB 42)                  [al-thiqah] [trustworthy man]	thiqah (yang boleh dipercayai) (PIB 26) [trustworthy] ([who can be trusted])	Explicitation
(RIB 165)       رغبة فی الأجر والثواب [raghbah] [fī] [al-ajr] [wa-al-thawāb] [interested] [in] [reward] [and reward]	untuk mendapatkan pahala   [to] [receive] [reward]	Deletion
أقبیة (RIB: 621)                [aqbiyah] [aqbiyah] (a luxurious, sleeved robe)	Pakaian (PIB: 733) [garment]	Generalization

Discussion of case study

The analysis performed on the selected cultural items demonstrates that the translators applied eight of Vinay and Darbelnet’s translation procedures. The procedures used are: i) borrowing, ii) calque, iii) literal translation, iv) transposition, v) modulation, plus the supplementary procedures vi) explicitation, vii) deletion and viii) generalization. There is no example identified of équivalence and adaptation (oblique translation), perhaps partly because the present research concentrates on the lexemes. Table 1 shows that overall the four most common procedures applied by the translators are: i) borrowing, ii) explicitation, iii) literal translation and iv) generalization. The result of this study proves that, although Vinay and Darbelnet’s approach is based on comparative stylistics between French and English, their approach provides a theoretical basis for the study of other language pairs.

References

Vinay, Jean-Paul and  Jean Darbelnet (1958/1995) Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais: Méthode de traduction, Paris: Didier, translated and edited by Juan C. Sager and Marie-Jo Hamel (1995) as Comparative Stylistics of French and English: A Methodology for Translation, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.