TRANSLATION THEORY

Dr. Mashadi Said(Secretary of Master’s Program in Translation

of Gunadarma University, Jakarta)

Drs. In English Literature and Education, 1984 Post Graduate Diploma in Applied Linguistics,

1990 Magister in English Education, 1994 Ph D. in English Education, 1998

1. What is translation?

a. Translation consists of transferring the meaning of the source language text into the receptor language text.

What is translation? B. . Catford (1965: 20) Translation is

the replacement of textual material in one language by equivalent textual material in another language. (Penerjemahan adalah penggantian materi tekstual dalam suatu bahasa dengan materi tekstual yang padan dalam bahasa lain.

What is translation? C. Translating consists of

reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style (Nida and Taber, 1982)

What is translation? D. Translation is the general term

referring to the transfer of thoughts and ideas from one language (source) to another (target), whether the languages are in written or oral form; whether the languages have established orthographies or do not have such standardization or whether one or both languages is based on signs, as with sign languages of the deaf (Brislin, 1976)

What is translation? E. Translation is a process of finding a

TL equivalent for an SL utterance. (Pinhuhuck, 1977:38)

F. Translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language. (Newmark, 1981:7)

What is translation? G. (McGuire, 1980:2) Translation involves

the rendering of a source language (SL) text into the target language (TL) so as to ensure that (1) the surface meaning of the two will be approximately similar and (2) the structure of the SL will be preserved as closely as possible, but not so closely that the TL structure will be seriously distorted.

What is translation? H. Translation is a transfer process

which aims at the transformation of a written SL text into an optimally equivalent TL text, and which requires the syntactic, the systematic and the pragmatic understanding and analytical processing of the SL (Wilss and Noss, 1982).

What is the process of transferring the meaning into the receptor lg. text?

Translation consist of studying the lexicon, grammatical structure, communication situation, and cultural context of the source language text, analyzing it in order to determine its meaning, and then reconstructing this same meaning using the lexicon and grammatical structure which are appropriate in the receptor language and its cultural context.

3. What are the characteristics oflanguage which affect

translation? a) Meaning components are “packaged”

into lexical items, but they are ‘packaged’ differently in one language than in another. Many times a single word in the source language will need to be translated by several words.

b) It is characteristic of language that the same meaning component will occur in several surface structure lexical items (forms).

c) It is further characteristics of languages that one form will be used to represent several alternative meaning.

d) Whole sentences may also have several functions. A question form may be used for a nonquestion.

e) A single meaning may be expressed in a variety of forms.

3. What are the characteristics oflanguage which affect

translation?

4. What is the goal of a translator?

The goal of a translator should be to produce a receptor language text (translation), which is idiomatic; that is, one which has the same meaning as the source language but is expressed in the natural form of the receptor language. The meaning, not the form, is retained.

5. Is it necessary to change the

form when translating?

Anything that can be said in one language can be said in another. It is possible to translate. The goal of the translator is to keep the meaning constant. Whenever necessary, the receptor language form should be changed in order that the source language meaning not be distorted. Since a meaning expressed by a particular form in one language may be expressed by quite a different form in another language, it is often necessary to change the form when translating. It is not uncommon that passive constructions will need to be translated with an active construction or vice versa, depending on the natural form of the receptor language.

6. What is literal Translation?

Literal translation or form-based translation attempt to follow the form of the source language.

7. What is idiomatic translation?

Idiomatic translation or meaning-based translations makes every effort to communicate the meaning of the source language text in the natural forms of the receptor language. The basic overriding principle is that an idiomatic translation reproduces the meaning of the source language (that is, the meaning intended by the original communicator) in the natural form of the receptor language.

8. How does a translator know that he is successful in his translation

task?

He will know that he is successful if the receptor language readers do not recognize his work as a translation at all, but simply as a text written in the receptor language for their information and enjoyment.

9. How does a translator make his translation as dynamic as the original

text?

For the translation to have the same dynamics as the original, it will need to natural and easy to understand so that the readers will find it easy to grasp the message, including both the information and the emotional effect intended by the source language writer.

10.What is non-equivalence?

Non-equivalence at word level means that the target language has no direct equivalent for a word which occurs in the text.

11.Why non-equivalence? Culture-specific concepts

(Religious belief, a social custom, or a type of food and tools).

12.How do we handle a non-equivalence

Translation by a more general word (superordinate)

Translation by a more natural/less expressive word

Translation by cultural substitution Translation using a loan word or

loan word plus explanation

Translation by paraphrase using a related word

Translation by paraphrase using unrelated words

Translation by omission Translation by illustration

12.How do we handle a non-equivalence

13.How do we establish a translation project?

There are a number of matters which include the text, the target, the team, and the tools which need to be clearly understood before beginning a translation project.

Text refers to the source language document which is to be translated

Target refers to the audience. For whom is the translation being prepared?

13.How do we establish a translation project?

Team refers to the people who will be involved in the project. The team may consist of

1) co-translator, where one is a specialist in the source language and the other a specialist in the receptor language,

2) a translator with capability to handle both source language and receptor language matters and ad advisor or consultant,

3) a committee working together with specific responsibilities delegated to each one.

13.How do we establish a translation project?

Tools refers to the written source materials which will be used by the translators as helps. These include dictionaries, lexicons, grammars, cultural descriptions, etc.

13.How do we establish a translation project?