THE UNIT OF TRANSLATION AS A PRELUDE TO ANALYSIS

THE UNIT OF TRANSLATION AS A PRELUDE TO ANALYSIS
Division of ST and TT into the units of translation is of particular importance in
Vinay and Darbelnet’s work as a prelude to analysis of changes in translation, the
translation shifts that will occupy us in Unit 4.As an illustration of how this division
works, and how it might illuminate the process of translation, look at Example
A3.4a, a poster located by the underground ticket office at Heathrow airport,
London:
Example A3.4a
Travelling from Heathrow?
There are easy to follow instructions on the larger self-service touch screen ticket
machines.

Task A3.3
➤ Before reading further, imagine you have been asked to translate this poster
into your first language (or main foreign language).Write down your translation
and make a note of the translation units you use when dividing up
the ST.

A translator approaching this short text will most probably break it down into the
title (Travelling from Heathrow?) and the instructions in the second sentence.While
that sentence will be taken as a whole, it might also in turn be sub-divided more or
less as follows:
There are/
[easy to follow/instructions]/
[on the/larger/self-service/touch screen/ticket machines]
Here, the slashes (/) indicate small word groups with a distinct semantic meaning
that might be considered separately, while the brackets ([. . .]) enclose larger units
that a practised translator is likely to translate as a whole.
The actual French TT on the poster indicates how this operates in real life: