درس مدلهای ترجمه 3

The translation models focused largely on the sentence level and the analysis of deep sentence structure. Nida's (1964) reader-oriented dynamic equivalence started the idea of using sentence grammar for the improvement of Bible translation. Catford (1965) on the other hand, refined Halliday's grammatical 'rank scale' theory to "underline the hypothesis that translation of equivalence depends upon the availability of formal correspondence between linguistic items at different structural levels and ranks" (Hartmann, 1980), and more so at the sentence level

درس مدلهای ترجمه 2

TRANSLATION PROCEDURES

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In contrast to translation strategies (the translators’ global approach or plan of action on a given text, according to their intention), translation procedures are used for sentences and smaller units of language within that text.

 

Translation procedures are methods applied by translators when they formulate an equivalence for the

 

purpose of transferring elements of meaning from the Source Text (ST) to the Target Text (TT). (Delisle)

 

Vinay and Darbelnet first proposed seven

methods or procedures (loan, calque. literal translation,

transposition, modulation, equivalence, adaptation) in 1973.

 

More than one procedure can be seen in one translation, and some translations may result from a cluster of

 

procedures that is difficult to discern

 

Source: Peter Newmark,

A Textbook of Translation New York: Prentice Hall, 1988) 69, 81-93;

Jean-Paul Vinay and J. Darbelnet,

Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais (Paris: Didier,

1973);

 

Jean Delisle et al., ed.

Translation Terminology. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins,

1999.

 

Terms between angular brackets <> are those in which Delisle differs from Newmark. When the Spanish

 

term has a form dissimilar to the English one, it appears between inverted commas “”.

 

W

ORD-FOR-WORD TRANSLATION (CLOSE TRANSLATION)= Transferring SL grammar and word order as well as

the primary meanings of all SL words

 

He works in the house -now > Il travaile dans la mansion maintenant

 

O

NE-TO-ONE TRANSLATION (CLOSE TRANSLATION)= Each SL word has a corresponding TL word, but their

primary (isolated) meanings may differ

 

hacer un examen > take an exam

 

§L

ITERAL TRANSLATION (CLOSE TRANSLATION)= Literal translation ranges from one word to one word,

through group to group (

un beau jardin > a beautiful garden), collocation to collocation (make a speech >

faire un discours

), clause to clause (when that was done > quand cela fut fait), to sentence to sentence

(

The man was in the street > L’homme était dans la rue)

§

THROUGH-TRANSLATION <CALQUE> “calco” = The literal translation of common collocations, names of

organizations, the components of compounds, and perhaps phrases

 

<To transfer a SL word or expression into the Target Text using a literal translation of its component

 

elements> (Delisle)

 

superman >Übermensch

 

compliments de la saison > compliments of the season

 

marriage de convenance > marriage of convenience

 

skyscraper > rascacielos

 

football > balompié

 

§

TRANSFERENCE, <BORROWING> “préstamo” (loan word, transcription; transliteration)= Transferring a SL

word to a TL. Either because the TL does not have a lexicalized correspondence, or for stylistic or

 

rhetorical reasons

 

e.g.

coup d’état; noblesse oblige!, Realpolitik, “mermelada light”, “música rap”, ad hoc formulation,

proper names, names of people (except the Pope and royals),

The Times, American On Line,

§

NATURALISTATION, <DIRECT TRANSFER, “traslado”>= Adapting a SL word first to the normal pronunciation,

then to the normal morphology of the TL

 

(in French)

thatchérisme; (in German) Performanz

§

SYNONYMY = To use a near TL equivalent to an SL word in a context, where a precise equivalent may or

may not exist. This procedure is used when there is no clear one-to-one equivalent, when literal translation

 

is not possible, and the word is not important in the text (adjectives, adverbs of quality), not important

 

enough for componential analysis.

 

Personne gentile > kind person

 

Conte piquant > racy story

 

§

TRANSPOSITION, SHIFT (Catford), <RECATEGORIZATION>= A change in the grammar from SL to TL

(singular to plural; position of the adjective, changing the world class or part of speech)

 

Working with you is a pleasure > Trabajar contigo… El trabajo contigo … Cuando trabajo contigo…

 

d’une importance exceptionnelle > exceptionally large

(SL adj. + adjectival noun > TL adv. + adj.)

Tras su salida

> after he’d gone out

There’s a reason for life > Hay una razón para vivir

 

with government support > apoyado por el gobierno

 

It’s getting dark > comienza a oscurecer

 

§<

DENOMINALIZATION>

To transform a noun or nominal structure in the ST into a verbal structure in the TT

 

Some language, such as French and German, prefer to package verb-related information in verbal nouns,

 

whereas English prefers to use verbs, specifically action verbs. Hnce we speak of <

deverbalization> or

<

nominalization> when translating out of English into other languages (Delisle)

§<

RECASTING> = To modify the order of the units in a ST in order to conform to the syntactic or idiomatic

constraints of the Target Text

 

§M

ODULATION= Variation through change of viewpoint, of perspective, and very often of category of

thought (Vinay and Darbelnet) introducing a clarification with respect to the original formulation

 

Il n’a pas hésité > He acted at once

 

shallow > poco profundo

 

(

POSITIVE FOR DOUBLE NEGATIVE, DOUBLE NEGATIVE FOR POSITIVE [ANTONYMY] - MODULATION)

sleep in the open > dormir à la belle étoile

 

sleep by the fire > sentarse junto a la chimenea

 

La scrittura non è altro che una forma di parlare > Lo escrito no es otra cosa que una forma de hablar

 

(

ABSTRACT FOR CONCRETE - MODULATION)

You’re quite a stranger > No se te ve el pelo> On ne vous voit plus

 

The firing of cannons > El estampido de los cañones

 

(

CAUSE FOR EFFECT - MODULATION)

from cover to cover > de la primera hasta la última página

 

(

ONE PART FOR ANOTHER - MODULATION)

lebensgefährlich

> danger de mort

heatlh insurance > seguro de enfermendad

 

À feu et à sang > a sangre y fuego

 

Safe and sound > Sano y salvo

 

(

REVERSAL OF TERMS - MODULATION)

(

ACTIVE FOR PASSIVE - MODULATION)

§

EQUIVALENCE (Vinay and Darbelnet)= To substitute a TL statement for a SL statement which accounts for

the same situation, even though there is no formal or semantic correspondence.

 

To render a set phrase [idiom, cliché, “locución”] from the SL with a set phrase from the TL which expresses

 

the same idea, although in a different way (Delisle).

 

Approximate equivalence of complete statements, accounting for the same situation in different terms.

 

Different from modulation in that it belongs to the semantic level, not to the lexical level.

 

An extreme case of ‘modulation’.

 

the story so far > Résumé des chapitres précédents

 

The early bird catches the worm > A quien madruga Dios le ayuda

 

One bitten, twice shy > El gato escaldado del agua fría huye

 

Such hypocrisy makes me see red > Esas hipocresías me sacan de quicio

 

Get off your backside and do something useful! > ¡Deja de rascarte la barriga y ponte a hacer algo útil!

 

No parking at all times > vado permanente

 

You are welcome > de nada

 

§<

ADAPTATION> (Vinay and Darbelnet) (CULTURAL EQUIVALENT for Newmark)= To replace a situation of

the SL by an analogous situation of the TL (when communicative situations are difficult to understand in

 

the culture of TL, when the situation of the SL does not exist in the TL - a cultural gap- and therefore

 

another equivalent situation has to be created)

 

To replace a socio-cultural reality from the SL with a reality specific to the Target Culture in order to

 

accomodate for the expectations of the Target Audience (Delisle)

 

Dear Sir > Muy señor mío

 

Yours ever > Le saluda atentamente

 

Saria male usar quelle parole antique toscane > Sería malo servirnos de aquellas palabras que ya estàn

 

fuera de uso

 

Dupont et Dupond

(characters in Tinin) > Thomson and Thompson > Hernández y Fernández >

= A cultural SL word is translated by a TL cultural word (Newmark)

 

baccalauréat

is translated as ‘(the French) ‘A’ level’, or Abitur as ‘(the German) ‘A’ level’

He met her in the pub > La encontró en el bar > Il l’ a retrouvée dans le café

 

vingt mètres derrière lui

> veinte metros por detrás de él > twenty yards behind him

§

RECOGNISED TRANSLATION = Use of the official or generally accepted translation of any institutional term

Rechtsstaat> constitutional state

 

§F

UNCTIONAL EQUIVALENT = To neutralise or generalise a SL cultural word by using a culture-free word

baccalauréat

> French secondary school leaving exam

he was not a diplomat but a wistful major in the Life Guards > No era diplomático sino triste general del

 

Regimiento Real de Caballería

 

§

DESCRIPTIVE EQUIVALENT, [related to EXPANSION OR AMPLIFICATION]

= To neutralise or generalise a SL cultural word by using a description

 

Samurai

> Japanese aristocracy from the eleventh to the nineteenth century

§

COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS

To split up a lexical unit into its sense components

 

§C

OMPENSATION= When loss of meaning, sound-effect, metaphor or pragmatic effect in one part of a

sentence is compensated in another part, or in a contiguous sentence

 

The atmosphere in the big gambling room had changed. It was now much quieter > El ambiente había

 

cambiado por completo en la gran sala de juego, que ahora se encontraba más tranquila

 

E.g. The French use of the pronoun

tu to express familiarity between two people (as opposed to formal

vous

) could correspond in English to the use of a first name or nickname, or be marked by familiar

syntactic phrases (ex. I’m, you’re) (Delisle).

 

§

EXPANSION <AMPLIFICATION>

To use more words in the Target Text in order to re-express an idea or to reinforce the sense of a ST word

 

because his correspondence in the TL cannot be expressed as concisely (Delisle)

 

vivificante > life-giving

 

penalty

(in football) > tir de réparation

Yorkshire > condado de Yorkshire

 

§

PARAPHRASE= Amplification or explanation of the meaning of a segment of the text

For Delisle, paraphrase is the result of amplifying a TT by replacing a word from the ST with a group of

 

words or phrasal expression that has the equivalent sense

 

§

EXPLICITATION

To introduce precise details into the TT for clarification (Delisle)

 

To help resolve the basic questions of delegation > Para ayudar a resolver el problema fundamental de la

 

delegación de poderes

 

§

REDUCTION <CONCENTRATION> <resulting in CONCISION and in ECONOMY>

computer science > informática

 

machine à laver

> lavadora

OMISSION

 

= To concentrate or suppress elements in the TL text

 

The committee has failed to act > La comisión no actuó

 

§<

IMPLICITATION>

A translation procedure intended to increase the economy of the TT and achieved by not explicitly rendering

 

elements of information from the Source Text in the Target Text when they are evident from the context

 

or the described situation and can be readily inferred by speaker of the TL

 

Be sure the iron is unplugged from the electrical outlet before filling with water

> Desconectar la plancha

siempre antes de llenar el depósito

 

§

NOTES, ADDITIONS, GLOSSES

When the translator supplies additional information in the form of footnotes, endnote, glossaries at the end

 

of the text, or within the text (e.g.

Debrecen > the city of Debrecen, in West Hungary)

درس مدلهای ترجمه

As we all know, good translation is not usually just a question of translating each word in turn of the source text into the target language. Nor does it (often) consist, however, of the translator skimming through the source text, putting it aside and then jotting down the general idea of it in his or her own words in the target language. In between the two extremes there is a wide variety of techniques ("strategies"), many of which translators will use intuitively for any given text.

A List

One widely-accepted list of translation techniques is outlined briefly below. If you are interested, there is a more complete description in Fawcett (1997:34-41) - the full reference is at the end of this page.

1. Borrowing

This means taking words straight into another language. Borrowed terms often pass into general usage, for example in the fields of technology ("software") and culture ("punk"). Borrowing can be for different reasons, with the examples below being taken from usage rather than translated texts:

• the target language has no (generally used) equivalent. For example, the first man-made satellites were Soviet, so for a time they were known in English as "sputniks".
• the source language word sounds "better" (more specific, fashionable, exotic or just accepted), even though it can be translated. For example, Spanish IT is full or terms like "soft[ware]", and Spanish accountants talk of "overheads", even though these terms can be translated into Spanish. 
• to retain some "feel" of the source language. For example, from a recent issue of The Guardian newspaper: "Madrileños are surprisingly unworldly."

2. Calque

This is a literal translation at phrase level. Sometimes calques work, sometimes they don't. You often see them in specialized, internationalized fields such as quality assurance (aseguramiento de calidad, assurance qualité, Qualitätssicherung...).

3. Literal Translation

Just what it says - "El equipo está trabajando para acabar el informe" - "The team is working to finish the report". Again, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. For example, the Spanish sentence above could not be translated into French or German in the same way - you would have to use technique no. 4...

4. Transposition

This is the mechanical process whereby parts of speech "play musical chairs" (Fawcett's analogy) when they are translated. Grammatical structures are not often identical in different languages. "She likes swimming" translates as "Le gusta nadar" (not "nadando") - or in German, "Sie schwimmt gern", because gerunds and infinitives work in different ways in English and Spanish, and German is German (bringing in an adverb to complicate matters). Transposition is often used between English and Spanish because of the preferred position of the verb in the sentence: English wants the verb up near the front; Spanish can have it closer to the end. 

5. Modulation

Now we're getting clever. Slightly more abstract than transposition, this consists of using a phrase that is different in the source and target languages to convey the same idea - "Te lo dejo" - "You can have it".

6. Reformulation (sometimes known as équivalence)

Here you have to express something in a completely different way, for example when translating idioms or, even harder, advertising slogans. The process is creative, but not always easy. Would you have given the name Sonrisas y lágrimas to the film The Sound of Music in Spanish?

7. Adaptation

Here something specific to the source language culture is expressed in a totally different way that is familiar or appropriate to the target language culture. Sometimes it is valid, and sometimes it is problematic, to say the least. Should a restaurant menu in a Spanish tourist resort translate "pincho" as "kebab" in English? Should a French text talking about Belgian jokes be translated into English as talking about Irish jokes (always assuming it should be translated at all)? We will return to these problems of referentiality below. 

8. Compensation

Another model describes a technique known as compensation. This is a rather amorphous term, but in general terms it can be used where something cannot be translated from source to target language, and the meaning that is lost in the immediate translation is expressed somewhere else in the TT. Fawcett defines it as: "...making good in one part of the text something that could not be translated in another". One example given by Fawcett is the problem of translating nuances of formality from languages which use forms such as tu and usted (tu/vous, du/Sie, etc.) into English which only has 'you', and expresses degrees of formality in different ways. If you want to read more, look at Fawcett 1997:31-33.

A Task: Getting Used to the Terms

Here are eight sentences, together with a possible translation. Which of the above techniques has been used in each case? The parts of the sentences you should look at are underlined - naturally, translating a whole sentence may well involve more than one of the above techniques. A hint: there is one example of each technique. Type your answers into the Word document you started earlier.

1. Mi profesor es un cabrón. - My teacher is a bastard. 

2. His lack of experience is obvious. - Su falta de experiencia es evidente. 

3. Seguidamente, aflojaremos el tornillo A... - Next, loosen screw A... 

4. The documents are sent to all departments. - Los documentos se envían a todos los departamentos. 

5. "Eh, jefe, has llegado tarde," dijó Marta. - "Hey boss, you're late," said Marta, in a deliberately over-familiar way. 

6. 'Some Like it Hot' - 'Con faldas y a lo loco' 

7. Prueben nuestra deliciosa paella. - Try our delicious paella. 

8. Your hard disk will be formatted. - Se dará formato al disco duro. 

What techniques can you spot in the parts of the sentences that are not underlined?

Final Task: In Practice

First, go back to your translations from the preliminary task.

• Which of the above techniques did you use in each case?
• What would you improve now, having read the list of techniques above? 

Now give examples of some strategies you would use with the following texts (we are looking for a discussion of techniques here, not a translation).

Text 1: English to Spanish

As we embark on the second electrical century, a "triple power shock" of technological, economic and environmental trends could potentially push the energy system further towards a more small-scale decentralized model. Some see parallels with recent revolutions in the telecommunications industry, which has been transformed by new technology and deregulation, and in the computer industry, which has been completely realigned by the rapid shift from mainframes to personal computers. In any event, these new "micropower" technologies represent a dramatic departure from the status quo. (S. Dunn, Micropower: The Next Electrical Era, Worldwatch Institute, Washington D.C., 2000.)

Text 2: Spanish to English

De acuerdo con lo dispuesto en el artículo 60 de la Ley 30/95, de Ordenación y Supervisión de los Seguros Privados, se informa al asegurado que el control de la actividad Entidad Aseguradora de [XXX] SEGUROS GENERALES, COMPAÑIA DE SEGUROS Y REASEGUROS, S.A., corresponde a la Dirección General de Seguros como organismo administrativo del Estado Español, y que el presente contrato de seguro se rige por lo dispuesto en la Ley 50/1.980, de 8 de octubre, de Contrato de Seguro, modificado por la Ley 30/1.995, de 8 de noviembre, de Ordenación y Supervisión de los Seguros Privados publicada en el Boletín Oficial del Estado de 9 de noviembre de 1.995, así como por cualquier otra norma legal futura de aplicación imperativa y por lo convenido en las CONDICIONES GENERALES y PARTICULARES de este contrato, cuyas cláusulas limitativas de los derechos de los Asegurados son específicamente aceptadas por los mismos, como pacto adicional a las CONDICIONES PARTICULARES. (The first sentence(!) of a document outlining the conditions for an insurance policy, 2000).

Digging Deeper

1. Read the piece by Anthony Pym on Two Kinds of Macro-Strategies. This is not an optional reading, although the exercises are.

2. There are widely-differing models for describing these processes. If you are interested in finding out more about these, you could look at Peter Fawcett, Translation and Language, St. Jerome, Manchester, 1997, especially Chapter 4 on Translation Techniques. This is optional reading.

The summary above talks about words and phrases, but bear in mind that translation works at different levels - from words and phrases up to the level of the whole text. Gouadec, who ought to know, says that the mark of novice translators is that they only work at the lowest level (words and phrases), so be warned.

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