Chapter 10

Translation

Communication between speakers who don’t share a common language is a universal, and – so far! – permanent problem faced by humanity, and thus falls within the scope of applied linguistics.

Translation Studies is the academic field concerned with the systematic study of the theory and practice of translation and interpreting.

Contexts of translation

In Mexico, the most famous of translators was La Malinche, the Indigenous interpreter for the Spanish conquistadors who conquered the region under Hernán Cortés.

In the many multilingual cities, towns and villages of the world, translation is a daily communication tool, more often than not oral.

Translation also happens in language classrooms all over the planet as an inevitable component of learning, sometimes under the guidance of the teacher, but probably more often involuntarily.

For linguists working to understand languages which are not well known outside the communities where they are spoken, translation is a fundamental tool, used to analyse the way the language works.

Translatability and translation equivalence

The translation process ‘carries across’ an intended message or meaning from one text to a second text in another language.

Now when an object is carried from one place to another it is the same object, before and after carrying, although absolute equivalence at all levels is impossible.

An accidental translator in Mexico was asked to translate into English a book on Mexican identity:

In one section the author refers to the concept of postmodernity (posmodernidad) but remarks in a footnote that he prefers the reverberations of the Spanish term desmodernidad.

He goes on to observe that ‘[i]n English it might be termed “dismothernism”, but only Latin Americans would understand the desmadre implied in the translation’. This left the novice translator in a difficult position. The reader of the translation might not be familiar with the Spanish term desmadre, but understanding it is crucial for understanding the author’s own English pun. In the end, Chris added (rather lamely) ‘Translator’s note: desmadre (lit. “dismother”) means roughly “mess, ugly predicament”’.

The translation process

What kind of translation products are possible? The unmagical process has been described as having three distinct stages.

  • Comprehension of the original SL text, the end (product of which is a non-linguistic, conceptual representation in short-term memory).
  • Expression of the comprehended message in the TL.
  • Revision of the TL text on the basis of a re-reading of the SL text and deeper consideration of the TL-speaking audience.

What do translators need to know?

  • Grammatical competence and fluency in the relevant TL variety(ies).
  • Grammatical competence and fluency in the relevant SL variety(ies).
  • (Access to) a large and varied vocabulary in both languages, including specialized terminology tied to often very narrow professional or cultural domains.
  • Explicit metalinguistic knowledge about the grammars of both languages and about areas of grammatical overlap, alignment or disparity.
  • Knowledge of the pragmatic routines through which SL and TL map communicative intention and effects onto linguistic expressions.
  • Knowledge of a range of styles, genres, registers, dialects and international varieties associated with both languages.
  • Knowledge of literacy and the ability to read and to write (and speak or sign) clearly and elegantly (i.e. knowledge of the conventions of appropriate style for a range of contexts).
  • Knowledge of translation theory and the range of professional resources and strategies that may be employed to translate effectively.
  • Knowledge of the cultural background of the expresser and of the knowledge the expresser assumes the SL receiver to have (the expresser is writing for speakers of the SL, not the TL, and so assumes knowledge which the TL receiver may not possess).
  • Knowledge of the subject matter of the SL text and the extent to which aspects of it are limited to the expresser’s cultural context.
  • Knowledge of the social and political practices, and the moral and behavioural norms, of the expresser’s and receivers’ cultures.
  • Research intelligence’: the skills required to find appropriate terminology and identify reliable sources (especially on the internet).
  • A clear understanding of the specific needs of the client.

Types of translation

Reader-focused types.

Text-focused types.

  • Functional: Seeks to render the functions of the SL text.
  • Communicative: Seeks to communicate the original expresser’s message.
  • Text-based: The translation process operates on the meaning of the whole text.
  • Shift: Modifies the content of the SL text in the interests of the reader’s localized cultural knowledge and needs.
  • Domesticating: Adapts the translation to local conditions.
  • Formal: Seeks to render as close as possible the form of the SL text.
  • Semantic: Seeks to render the literal meaning of the original text, leaving unexpressed any meaning which was only implicit in the original.
  • Word-based: The translation process operates on the level of the sentence.
  • Equivalence: The translation does not contain any meaning which is not in the original.
  • Foreignizing: The translation maintains as many elements of the SL and source culture as possible, even when the result does not sound colloquial in the TL or familiar in the target culture.

Interpreting and audiovisual translation

Professional interpreting of oral and signed SL discourse is becoming an increasingly common and important aspect of global translation activity.

  • International travel has become so much cheaper and easier, resulting in more frequent and more varied multilingual encounters.
  • The growth in transnational migration, also involving increased mobility, but often motivated by economic needs or personal security rather than choice.
  • The growing recognition in many countries that residents who do not have access to one of the languages in which public affairs are typically conducted nevertheless have the right to participate fully in the affairs of their local and national communities.

Technology in translation

Automatic translation has steadily progressed since its beginnings half a century ago. Many users of the internet will be aware of online tools like Google Translate or Altavista’s appropriately named Babel Fish.

The result of the software’s lack of linguistic knowledge and insensitivity to context.

The fact that human languages use such complex bio computational systems, coupled with the fact that they may be used to communicate an infinite range of messages which are almost always interpretable only when combined with vast sources of non-linguistic knowledge, makes the complete simulation of any one of them by a computer well-nigh impossible, at least for the foreseeable future.