BASIC CONCEPTS AND TERMS Methods and principles of

IN TRANSLATION translation
CHAPTER 1 Session 1
WHAT IS TRANSLATION?
In English, the word “translation” comes In this case, we are concerned with
from Latin. In Latin, “trans” means carrying across a message from one
“across” language to another. In other words, we
start with a message in one language,
The other part of the word – “lation” – and, through the act of translation, we
comes from the Latin verb that means “to end up with that same message in
carry”. another language.
So if we put the two elements together, For instance, if you take a trans-Atlantic
we can see that “translation” essentially flight, it means that you will be flying
means “to carry across”. across the Atlantic Ocean from one side
to the other, such as flying from New
York to London.
In general language, the term In its narrower sense, translation means
translation is sometimes used as a sort of the transfer of a written message from
umbrella term to describe in a broad one language to another.
way any activity where a message is
transferred from one language to If we are talking about transferring a
another. spoken or signed message, then the term
used to describe this is interpretation.
However, within the language
professions, translation has a more
restricted meaning. We can have
different modes of communication,
including a written mode, a spoken
mode, and a signed mode.
WHAT IS MEANT BY SOURCE, TARGET, AND
EQUIVALENCE?
The notion of equivalence is a central
concept in translation.
At its simplest, equivalence is usually
understood to be the relationship
between the original text and its
translation.
Whenever we translate a text, we
always start with a message in one
language and end with a message in
another language.
DIRECTION
In other words, we are dealing with a So English-Arabic or English>Arabic
pair of languages, and, indeed, we use translation means translation from English
the term language pair to refer to the into Arabic, while Arabic-English or
two languages in question. Arabic>English translation means
translation from Arabic into English.
But it is not enough to know only the
language pair. It is also important to A translator or translation company that
specify the direction in which the offers translation services in both
translation is happening (i.e., translation directions might indicate this in the
from and into). following way: Arabic< >E nglish.
By convention, the language of the
starting message is written first, followed
by the language of the ending message.
EQUIVALENCE
When the translation is complete, the
source text and target text are assumed
to be equivalent, although you will see in
an upcoming section why the notion of
equivalence is not always
straightforward.
DIRECTIONALITY
Translators may be very comfortable The reason for this is that most of us
working in one direction (e.g., from have a dominant language. This may be
English into Persian) but less confident the first language that you learned
working in the opposite direction (e.g., (sometimes called a native language or
from Persian into English). a mother tongue), or it could be the
language that you use most often.
While there may be a few exceptionally
bilingual people, most of us tend to have
one dominant language, and we are
most comfortable and competent
working into that language.
WHAT GETS TRANSLATED? WORDS?
This is why the notion of equivalence is
It would be easy to think that translators not as straightforward as it might first
are primarily concerned with translating appear.
words, but this is not exactly how
translation works. The equivalence is not likely to be at the
word level, since word-for-word
For the most part, translators focus on translation is not possible or desirable in
translating the message or the ideas that many cases.
are contained in the source text.
Therefore, equivalence is typically
If a translator is too focused on understood to be at the level of
translating each individual word rather meaning.
than trying to extract and then
repackage the message, the result can A source and target text are usually
sound stilted and be difficult to accepted as being equivalent if they
understand. have the same meaning, even though
they do not necessarily match up
precisely at the word level.
CHAPTER 1 Session 5-6
WHERE DO A TRANSLATOR’S LOYALTIES LIE?...
Translators need to take into account two This tension can be attributed to the fact
main things: that translators must navigate being
faithful to the source-text author’s
I. They are concerned with transferring intended message and chosen form of
the message or meaning of a source expression and being faithful to the
text. expectations and needs of the intended
II. They need to be sure that they are target-text readers.
expressing this message using words
and grammatical constructions that
sound natural in the target language.
It is not always easy to accomplish both
at the same time, which can create a sort
of tension.
…WHERE DO A TRANSLATOR’S LOYALTIES LIE?
For instance, to ensure that the target audience can understand the text, the translator
may need to adjust the form and even some parts of the message of the source text.
Translation is therefore usually presented as a spectrum, as shown in Figure 1.2.
At one end of the spectrum, we have literal translation, while, at the other end, we
have free translation.
…LITERAL VS FREE TRANSLATION
In a literal translation, a translator aims In contrast, a free translation is one that
to keep as much of the grammatical or aims to convey the meaning of the source
structural form of the source text as text but does so in a way that is far less
possible while also conveying the constrained by the form found in the
meaning. source text.
Literal translations often take a largely ➢Between these two extremes, a
word-for-word approach or use a word translation can lean more towards being
order that is based on the underlying a literal translation or more towards
source text. being a free one.
…TEXT TYPES
For many types of texts, especially those However, in other types of texts where
that are mainly intended to be there is more regional or culture-specific
informative or pragmatic (e.g., content (e.g., a website targeted at
textbooks, user manuals, administrative consumers in a particular country), or
texts, policy documents), it is possible to where the form of the text is particularly
strike a balance between being faithful creative and may involve wordplay or
to the source-text author’s message and humour (e.g., advertising texts, poetry), it
being faithful to the target audience’s may be necessary for translators to
expectations with regard to the adopt an approach that is further
language conventions. towards the free translation end of the
spectrum and to deviate more from both
the content and form of the source text.
…TEXT TYPES
❖In the case of an advertising text, a translator may try to ensure that the target-
language text has the same type of emotional effect on the target audience that the
source text has on the source audience, even though the two texts may not share the
same literal meaning or even use the same stylistic techniques.
❖The notion of equivalence is more complicated than it might first appear, since
there are different ways in which equivalence can be viewed (e.g., at the level of
word, meaning, or effect).
WHAT IS INVOLVED IN THE TRANSLATION
PROCESS?...
Two main stages in the translation
process: comprehension and production
(two corresponding categories of
challenges).
First, translators need to be able to
understand the source text, which means
that this stage is about decoding and
comprehending the source-text author’s
original message.
Remember that translators are not really
translating words. Instead, they are
translating the underlying ideas that are
being expressed by the words.
…WHAT IS INVOLVED IN THE TRANSLATION
PROCESS?
Following the comprehension stage, translators For example, all languages contain synonymy,
next enter the production stage, where the which is when two or more words can have a
focus shifts to encoding a message or very similar meaning.
producing a target text for the target
audience. Think about the weather, for example. If you
need to describe a day when the temperature
It is at this stage that translators must act as is moderately low, what word would you use?
wordsmiths, crafting a text that will meet the Cool? Chilly? Brisk? Perhaps invigorating?
needs and expectations of its intended
readers. To help them make such choices, translators can
once again turn to various resources and tools.
This is trickier than it sounds because language
offers many choices, meaning that a translator But translators also need to rely on their
needs to become a master decisionmaker. knowledge of the text type, the target-
language culture, and the specific target
audience in order to make the best possible
choices.
…EXAMPLE
❖For instance, if the text in question is on a medical subject but is an information
leaflet aimed at patients rather than at healthcare professionals, a translator must
know to use a term such as heart attack rather than the more technical term
myocardial infarction, which would be more appropriate for a scientific research
article.
❖Similarly, a translator may make different term choices when translating for adult
patients (e.g., intestinal discomfort) and when translating for children (e.g., tummy
ache)., the text meets the expectations of the target audience.
…CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE
Cultural knowledge also comes into play, Slang is another area of language that can
such as in the case of dealing with idiomatic be very culture-specific and where a literal
expressions. These expressions are often translation may not be adequate.
culture bound and cannot be translated
literally or they will be meaningless to a For example, in Spain, a slang word that can
target audience. be used to refer to “money” is pasta, but if
your audience consists of English speakers,
For instance, a word-for-word translation of then dough would be a better choice.
the Spanish-language expression “tomar el
pelo” would be “to grab the hair”, but a
more appropriate way to translate this idiom
into English would be to substitute the
equivalent expression “to pull someone’s
leg” because both of these expressions refer
to the same idea, which is about teasing
someone or playing a little trick on them.
…

➢ So translators need to consider the range of

options available to them for expressing a
given concept, then make the choice that they
feel will best convey that idea to the target
audience, taking into account the likely
knowledge, needs, and expectations of this
audience.
➢ It’s a tall order, which is why becoming a
professional translator requires a specialized
education and lots of practice.
IS IT TRUE THAT…?
I. Is it true that all translators speak I. Is it true that a good translator can
many languages? translate a text on any subject?
II. Is it true that all bilingual (or II. Is it true that there is one true or
multilingual) people make good perfect translation for every text?
translators?
III. Is it true that translation is actually
III. Is it true that translating and impossible?
interpreting are the same?
IV. Is it true that computers are going to
IV. Is it true that translation is just about replace translators before too much
substituting words in one language longer?
for words in another language?
IS IT TRUE THAT ALL TRANSLATORS SPEAK MANY
LANGUAGES?
❖Not necessarily.
❖Translation involves working with written texts, and writing and speaking are
different skills. A translator may be perfectly comfortable reading a source text in
another language but less comfortable chatting away in that language.
❖In addition, many translators work mainly into their dominant language, meaning
that they need to have an active mastery of that language, but their knowledge of
the source language could be more passive.
❖In contrast, interpreters do need to have an excellent command of at least two
spoken (or signed) languages, and they must be able to work in both directions.
IS IT TRUE THAT ALL BILINGUAL (OR MULTILINGUAL)
PEOPLE MAKE GOOD TRANSLATORS?
▪Translation involves much more than simply knowing two (or more) languages.
▪Translators need cultural knowledge, subject matter knowledge, knowledge about
tools and resources, strong research and writing skills, and much more.
▪Being bilingual is a pre-requisite for being a good translator, but this alone is not
sufficient to set a translator up for success.
IS IT TRUE THAT TRANSLATING AND INTERPRETING ARE
THE SAME?
▪Not exactly.
▪Although both translating and interpreting are concerned with transferring a
message from one language to another, translation deals with written texts and
interpreting deals with spoken or signed texts.
▪While there are some commonalities in the skillsets required, there are also some
significant differences in the way that translators and interpreters work.
 For instance, translators often work iteratively by producing a first draft and then revising that draft to
arrive at a polished final version.
 In contrast, interpreters work more or less in the moment and only have one shot at transferring the
message before they have to move on to the next sentence.
IS IT TRUE THAT TRANSLATION IS JUST ABOUT
SUBSTITUTING WORDS IN ONE LANGUAGE FOR WORDS
IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE?
oNope.
oIf it were that simple, then anyone with a good dictionary could do it.
oAs we’ve seen, translators need to choose between words that have very similar meanings.
oTranslators also need to change the order of words so that they follow the grammatical
conventions of the target language.
oWhat’s more, not all words have a direct equivalent, so translators focus on translating a message
rather than a series of words.
oIn some cases, such as with idiomatic expressions, a translator may even need to substitute a
different expression that is not a literal equivalent but which conveys the same idea.
o For example, the English expression “It’s raining cats and dogs” gets substituted with “Il pleut des cordes” (= “It’s raining
ropes”) when transferred into French.

oTranslators may even decide to omit certain words (e.g., a cultural reference that will not be
meaningful to the target audience) or to add in an explanation to clarify a concept that the target
audience may have difficulty understanding.
IS IT TRUE THAT A GOOD TRANSLATOR CAN TRANSLATE
A TEXT ON ANY SUBJECT?
▪Not on your life!
▪Texts can be written on any subject, and no human being can know absolutely
everything.
▪Every subject field has its own specialized concepts and terms, and it takes time and
effort to develop this expertise. The authors of the original source texts are experts in
their field, and, in order to do a good job transferring this specialized material into
another language, translators likewise need to become very familiar with it.
▪Many translators therefore choose to specialize in just a couple of areas, and an
increasing number have pursued some kind of education in both their subject field
specialization and translation (e.g., a bachelor’s degree in law coupled with a
master’s degree in translation).
IS IT TRUE THAT THERE IS ONE TRUE OR PERFECT
TRANSLATION FOR EVERY TEXT?
✓Absolutely not.
✓Translation is actually somewhat subjective. As you’ve learned, languages contain many
synonyms. For instance, you could describe very hot weather as “scorching” or “roasting”.
✓What’s more, languages tend to have some degree of flexibility with regard to the ways that
words can be combined.
▪ Although English speakers may find Yoda’s way of speaking a little odd, there are some words that can be
placed in different positions in a sentence without attracting a second glance. For example, many adverbs
can be placed either at the beginning or end of a sentence without impacting the meaning (e.g., “Yesterday I
went to school” and “I went to school yesterday”).
✓In addition, it’s possible to express the same basic idea using a positive or a negative
construction (e.g., “I left” and “I didn’t stay”).
✓Given the numerous options available for expressing an idea, it is unlikely that any two
translators will make exactly the same choices for every word and word combination in a text.
Therefore, two (or more) translations can be valid, even if they are not identical.
IS IT TRUE THAT TRANSLATION IS ACTUALLY
IMPOSSIBLE?...
➢This question has been asked countless times throughout history, and there is even a
well-known adage in Italian that states traduttori traditori (literally: “translators
traitors”).
▪ In this case, the term “traitor” is being used in a metaphorical way rather than in a literal way. The
idea being explored in this adage is that, because no two languages are identical, there will
inevitably be some degree of loss – to the meaning, the form, or both – as part of the translation
process, making it impossible for the translator to faithfully reproduce the source text in every respect.

➢In other words, the translation process entails making some compromises. So
translation is not about attempting an impossible task but about reducing and
managing the inevitable losses and perhaps even compensating by introducing some
gains in another part of the text to offset these losses.
…IS IT TRUE THAT TRANSLATION IS ACTUALLY
IMPOSSIBLE?
❖For instance, it may not be possible to preserve a rhyme when translating from one
language to another, but maybe a translator could introduce a different type of
wordplay instead (e.g., alliteration) to preserve the playful feel of the text overall
and achieve an equivalent effect on the target audience.
❖Seen from this perspective, we could say that translation is possible, although
perfect translation is not. In the vast majority of cases, an imperfect translation can
still be functional and meet a great many of our needs. We don’t expect absolute
perfection in most other areas of our lives, so it’s very important for us to have
realistic expectations about translation, too.
IS IT TRUE THAT COMPUTERS ARE GOING TO REPLACE
TRANSLATORS BEFORE TOO MUCH LONGER?
▪It’s complicated.
▪There are already some very specific instances where computers can produce usable
translations.
oFor example, if you want to translate a friend’s post on Facebook or Twitter or some other social media
platform, an automatic machine translation tool, such as Google Translate, could be a perfectly good choice
because it’s fast, free, and convenient, and because the consequences of having a less-than-perfect
translation are not likely to be too serious.

▪ However, in other contexts, such as in a hospital or in a court of law, using Google Translate
or a similar tool may not be a good idea. The concepts in question are likely to be more
specialized, and, if the translation is poorly done, the consequences could be quite serious
(e.g., getting the wrong diagnosis, getting sent to jail).
▪However, translators and computers working together can make a formidable team!)
KEY POINTS IN THIS CHAPTER
➢The word “translation” literally means “to carry across”, and it is used
as an umbrella term to describe the process of carrying a message from
one language to another.
➢“Translation” can also be used in a narrower sense, where it is usually
contrasted with “interpreting”. Translators transfer a written message
from one language to another, while interpreters transfer a spoken or
signed message from one language to another.
The term “source” refers to the text, language, audience, or culture that
is the starting point in the translation process (i.e., the original message),
while “target” is used to refer to the text, language, audience, or culture
that is the end point (i.e., the translated message). Source and target are
therefore relative to one another, meaning that the source language for
one job could be the target language for another job.
Equivalence is generally understood to refer to the relationship between
the source and target text, although equivalence can be sought at
different levels (e.g., word, meaning, effect).
• Translators often have one dominant language (e.g., their native language
or language of habitual use), and many translators translate only
into their dominant language. In contrast, interpreters need to be able
to work in both directions.
By convention, the source language is listed first and the target
language second (e.g., from English into French is written as
English>French).
• Translators translate ideas rather than words, although words are used
to express ideas.
• Translation cannot be carried out using a word-for-word approach
because languages present the world differently; sometimes one language
has a word for a concept but another language does not.
• Different languages have different rules and conventions for the order in
which words can be combined to form phrases or sentences.
• Translators need to consider both the content of the message and its
form when transferring a text from one language to another, which may
require making adjustments to both.
• Translation is a spectrum, with literal and free translation at its two
extremes.
• A literal translation aims to keep as much of the structural form of the
source text as possible while also conveying the meaning, while a free
translation aims to convey the meaning of the source text but does so in
a way that is less constrained by the source text’s form.
• Translators may experience tension when trying to respect the words
and message of the source-text author while also taking into account
the needs of the target audience.
Translation is a complex activity that includes both comprehension and
production. Translators need to be very familiar with the
subject matter of the source text to ensure a solid understanding of
the content, but they must also be strong writers who can manipulate the
target language to ensure that it aligns with target-audience
expectations.
A FEW COMMONLY HELD MISPERCEPTIONS
ABOUT TRANSLATION
All translators speak multiple languages.
• All bilingual people make good translators
• Translation and interpreting are interchangeable
• Translation is about substituting words in one language for words
in another language.
• A translator can translate a text on any subject.
• There is one perfect translation for every text.
• Translation is impossible.
• Computers are on the verge of replacing translators
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
Beyond linguistic or language-related knowledge, what other type of knowledge
does a translator most need to succeed?
• Has anything you’ve learned in this chapter caused you to think about translation or
translators in a different way than you did before? Explain.
• What other potential myths have you heard about translation or translators? Based
on what you’ve learned in this chapter, do you think they are true or false?