Theory of Translation

Author(s):  
Michael N. Forster

Herder’s theory of translation not only ultimately inspired but is also superior to the most important current theories of translation, those of Berman and Venuti. It is superior to them largely because it continues a traditional conception that faithfully re-expressing the meaning of the source text is a central criterion of success in translation. Like his hermeneutics, Herder’s translation theory rests on his philosophy of language and his principle of radical mental difference. He develops a number of important principles here, including a principle that the way to achieve semantic faithfulness in the face of conceptual differences is to “bend” word-usages in the target language in order to reproduce those in the source language, and a principle that translation must also strive for musical faithfulness. His translation theory not only inspired Schleiermacher’s but also made possible the extraordinary improvements in translation practice that occurred in the generation after him.

Author(s):  
Mohamad Irham Poluwa ◽  
Nafilaturif'ah Nafilaturif'ah

The current study aimed to find out the translation techniques applied by the translator in creating the Indonesian subtitles for the original lyrics of Shelter – a collaboration project of music video by Porter Robinson and Madeon, A1-Pictures and Crunchyroll uploaded on YouTube in 2016. The data were analyzed based on the audiovisual translation theory, especially the linguistics of subtitling, the translation technical procedures in the compared stylistics, and the choice in song translation. The study also applied qualitative approach which enabled the researchers to emerge data in descriptive way (in the form of words or pictures instead of numbers). Furthermore, the data were also in the forms of an audiovisual content. The study indicated that most of the lyrics were translated based on literal translation that was reflected by the equivalence of the source language and the target language. The audiovisual theory, particularly reduction theory was also applied in creating the subtitles. In addition, the subtitles were created without taking the music into consideration, meaning that the subtitles were devoted as a supplement or no more than another piece of the source text.  


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-239
Author(s):  
Mette Hjort-Pedersen

For many years translation theorists have discussed the degree of translational freedom a legal translator has in rendering the meaning of a legal source text in a translation. Some believe that in order to achieve the communicative purpose, legal translators should focus on readability and bias their translation towards the target language community. Others insist that because of the special nature of legal texts and the sometimes binding force of legal translations, translators should stay as close to the source text as possible, i.e., bias their translation towards the source language community. But what is the relationship between these ‘academic’ observations and the way professional users and producers, i.e., lawyers and translators, think of legal translation? This article examines how actors on the Danish legal translation market view translational manoeuvres that result in a more or less close relationship between a legal source text and its translation, and also the translator’s power to decide what the nature of this relationship should be and how it should manifest itself in the translation.


Author(s):  
Melati Desa

ABSTRACT   : Language and culture influences each other and its effect is reflected in not only the way humans think, but could also be seen in a full load of figurative elements in creative writing, such as metaphors. Thus, the report examines the aspects of the transfer of meaning in the live metaphors in Haru No Yuki, literary Japanese texts written by Yukio Mishima (1925 – 1970) translated to Malay by Muhammad Haji Salleh (1993) as Salju Musim Bunga published by Penataran Ilmu. This report studies on the equivalence of the meaning of translated live metaphors from the source text to the target text. From the study of the equivalence of meaning can be evaluated that, if there is any type of losses of meaning in form of under translation, over translation or wrong translation. The retention of live metaphors in the target text produced an ideal translation. Universal live metaphors maintained by the translator, this approach produced an ideal translation in form of meaning and accepted by the culture and speakers of the target language. The conclusion of this report shows that, one of the factors in producing quality translations is to understand the elements of the original cultural metaphors contained in the source text. Keywords: live metaphor, personification, ideal translation, equivalence of meaning ABSTRAK         : Bahasa dan budaya saling mempengaruhi dan kesannya dapat dilihat bukan sahaja dalam cara manusia berpikir malah dalam penulisan kreatif yang memuatkan unsur figuratif, metafora misalnya. Justeru, kajian ini meneliti aspek pemindahan makna dalam terjemahan metafora hidup dan personifikasi yang terdapat dalam teks kesusasteraan Jepun, Haru No Yuki hasil penulisan Yukio Mishima (1925 – 1970) diterjemahkan oleh Muhammad Haji Salleh (1993) menjadi Salju Musim Bunga (SMB) terbitan Penataran Ilmu. Kertas kerja ini mengkaji keselarasan makna terjemahan metafora hidup dan personifikasi daripada teks sumber kepada teks sasaran. Daripada kajian keselarasan makna dapat dinilai sama ada berlaku peleburan makna metafora apabila terhasilnya terjemahan kurang, terjemahan lebih atau terjemahan salah. Kaedah pengekalan metafora hidup dalam teks sasaran didapati menghasilkan terjemahan ideal. Metafora hidup yang bersifat universal dikekalkan oleh penterjemah, pendekatan ini menghasilkan terjemahan ideal dari sudut makna dan diterima oleh budaya dan penutur bahasa sasaran. Sebagai kesimpulan, kajian ini menunjukkan bahawa, salah satu faktor dalam usaha untuk menghasilkan terjemahan bermutu adalah dengan memahami unsur metafora budaya asal teks sumber.   Kata kunci : metafora hidup, personifikasi, terjemahan ideal, persamaan makna


2021 ◽  
pp. 238-256
Author(s):  
Amal Arrame

Translation is not simple transpositions operations or transcoding processes from one language to another, it involves complex mental processes where linguistics alone cannot be sufficient. It is a communication situation between two languages, Arabic and French in this case, where the objective of the translator is the transmission of his final product in a clear way, respecting the meaning and the author intention of the original version. Translation of phrases is a real dilemma for translators; however, it turns out that it is a necessity in order to discover the other, and to try to keep the same effect as the source text by giving it a stylistic touch typical to the target language. To this end, we have carefully chosen the corpus that we have translated. A corpus that reflects the originality of the Arabic language and the possibility of reducing the linguistic, cultural and discursive gaps between Arabic and French through translation. The translation processes we have chosen, take into account the target language, French in this case, its idioms, phrases and proverbs inventory, its particularity and, finally, its ability to comprehend the idea contained in the idioms of the source language.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vilelmini Sosoni

EU texts are produced by way of multilingual negotiation in a supranational multicultural discourse community, where there is no linguistically neutral ground and where the internationalisation of concepts and ideas is a sine qua non. As a result, they are idiosyncratic texts, reflecting specific textual features. Their translation in the current 23 official EU languages is equally idiosyncratic and challenging, to say the least, especially since it is shaped under the EU’s overwhelming cultural and linguistic diversity, the constraints of its policy of multilingualism, and the subsequent policy of linguistic equality which states that all languages are equal, or ‘equally authentic’ (Wagner, Bech, Martinez 2002, 7), and that translations are not really translations but language versions. In other words, in the framework of EU translation, the terms source text (ST) and target text (TT) cease to exist, while the prima facie illusory notion of ‘equivalence’ seems to resurface—though altered in nature—and dominate the translation practice. It thus goes without saying that in the case of EU texts and their translation a tailor-made theoretical framework is required where many classic concepts of Translation Studies (TS), such as ST, TT and equivalence need to be re-evaluated and redefined, and at the same time functionalist approaches and the postmodernist concepts of intertextuality, hybridity and in-betweenness need to come to the fore. The proposed translation theory for EU texts flaunts the feature inherent in their production, it is—just like them—hybrid.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Indra Grietēna

The paper reviews publications by Latvian linguists looking at the main translation problems within the context of the EU between 2005 and 2010. The author analyses the publications from three aspects: general aspects of translation problems and practices within the EU context, particular translation problems, and methodological publications providing guidelines for translators working within the EU context. The author reveals discussions on the ways translation influences language in general, the role of the source language for the development of the target language, and the role and responsibility of a translator at the ‘historical crossroads’. The article discusses a number of EU-specific translation problems, including source language interference, problems of the translator’s visibility and a translation’s transparency, ‘false friends’, and linguistic and contextual untranslatability. The author briefly summarizes the contents of guidelines and manuals for translators working within the EU context, highlighting the main differences between English and Latvian written language practices, literal (word-for-word) translation and the translator’s relationship with the source text. The publications selected and analysed have been published either in conference proceedings or in academic journals from the leading Latvian institutions in the field of translation: Ventspils University College, the University of Latvia, the State Language Commission of Latvia and Translation and Terminology Centre of Latvia.


Author(s):  
Andika Wijaya ◽  
Gloria Christine Setiyowati

Song lyric translation is important because in these recent decades people can access songs worldwide. The aim of this research is to gain an understanding of the difference between singable translations made by an Indonesian translator and a foreign translator by investigating what translation procedures and methods occur in two translated songs from Indonesian to English using qualitative descriptive method. The result of this research indicates that the singable translation made by a foreign translator is more identical to the source language (SL) compared to the one made by an Indonesian translator. However, despite the differences, the two translated songs share something in common, for instance the singability and the length of lyrics. Taking the findings into consideration, it could be said that the foreign translator is more faithful to the source text (ST), while the Indonesian translator emphasizes the target language (TL) more.


1970 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-25
Author(s):  
Sajarwa Sajarwa

Transfer of message in the translation process is always characterized by the difference of culture in the source language and the target language. Language, as a part of culture, affects the speaker mind including translator. Text of French literature (as source text, ST) and text of Indonesian literature (as target text, TT) could be an example of difference in mindset of French people as writer of French literature and Indonesian people as translator. The study results showed the differences in the mindset throught analyzes of (i) Active-Passive Construction of French pronoun on and passive di-, (ii) dominantly pronoun as means of topics continuity in French and repetition in Indonesian, and (iii) the difference ofinformational arrangement looked in impersonal construction of French with pattern of IL+IB and IB+IL in Indonesian.


Author(s):  
Dhini Aulia

Translation is a process to render the meaning from the source text into the target text. A translator, however, will find some problems during translation process. Equivalence is the case which often appears (i.e. culture specific concept, the source-language concept is not lexicalized in the target language, source-language word is semantically complex, etc). To cope with equivalnce problems in translation process, some experts suggest some strategies which can be applied in doing translation. Some strategies are transference, naturalization, cultural equivalent, etc. The strategies which often appears in the example texts in this paper are transference, naturalization, descriptive equivalent, couplet and  through-translation. It is recomended that translator apply the strategies if only there is no equivalence problem in target language. 


Author(s):  
Fahimeh Vamenani ◽  
Moslem Sadeghi

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the frequency of deforming tendencies on Persian translation of Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles based on Berman’s model. Moreover, the study set out to find out how words have been changed from the source language to fit the target language by adopting deforming tendencies. To achieve the aims of study, the researchers relied on content or document analysis as a qualitative type of study to analyze the strategies which were used in the translation of Tess of the d’Urbervilles novel from English to Persian. The data came from a sample of 300 sentences which were randomly selected from the novel translated into the Persian language by Mina Sarabi.The trustworthiness of the research findings was met through inter-rater agreement and it was reported 0.94. The results indicated that Persian translation of the work suffered from lexical mismatches, destruction of rhythm and destruction of vernacular networks, although destruction of rhythms and destruction of vernacular networks were among the most frequently used deformation tendencies. The findings also revealed that the translation has in one way or another maintained the genre and social stance of the author. Overall, it appears that Berman offers a model which is too severe on keeping the form and syntax of the source text in the Persian translation of Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document