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1、Introducing Translation StudiesTheories and Applications Name: Zhu MiClass: English 1122013/12/24Introducing Translation StudiesTheories and ApplicationsI. Main issues of translation studies1.1 The concept of translationThe term translation itself has several meanings: it can refer to the general su

2、bject field, the product or the process. The process of translation between two different written languages involves the translator changing an original verbal language into a written text in a different verbal language.interlingual translationThe Russian-American structuralist Roman Jakobson in his

3、 seminal paper On linguistic aspects of translation gave his categories as intralingual translation, interlingual translation and intersemiotic translation.1.2 What are translation studiesWritten and spoken translations traditionally were for scholarship and religious purposes.Yet the study of trans

4、lation as an academic subject has only really begun in the past fifty years, thanks to the Dutch-based US scholar James S.Holmes.Reasons for prominence: first, there has been a proliferation of specialized translating and interpreting courses at both and undergraduate and postgraduate level; second,

5、 other courses, in smaller numbers, focus on the practice of literary translation; the 1990s also saw a proliferation of conferences, books and journals on translation in many languages; in addition, various translation events were held in India, and an on-line translation symposium was organized.1.

6、3 A brief history of the disciplineThe practice of translation was discussed by, for example, Cicero and Horace and St Jerome; their writings were to exert an important influence up until the twentieth century.The study of translation of the field developed into an academic discipline only in the se

7、cond half of the twentieth century.Before that, translation had normally been merely an element of language learning in modern language courses, known for the grammar-translation method. With the rise of the direct method or communicative approach to English language teaching in the 1960s and 1970s,

8、 the grammar-translation method fell into increasing disrepute.In the USA, translation was promoted in universities in the 1960s by the translation workshop concept. Running parallel to it was that of comparative literature. Another area in which translation become the subject of research was contra

9、stive analysis. The continued application of a linguistic approach in general, and specific linguistic models such as generative grammar or functional grammar, has demonstrated an inherent and gut link with translation. And it began to emerge in the 1950s and 1960s.Eugene Nida1.4 The Holmes/Toury “m

10、apJs The name and nature of translation studies was regarded as “generally accepted as the founding statement for the field. He puts forward an overall framework, describing what translation studies covers. It has been subsequently presented by Gideon Toury.Another area Holmes mention is translation

11、 policy, where he sees the translation scholar advising on the place of translation in society, including what place, if any, it should occupy in the language teaching and learning curriculum.“Translation policy would nowadays far more likely be related to the ideology that determines translation th

12、an was the case in Holmes description.1.5 Developments since the 1970s Contrastive analysis has fallen by the way side. The linguistic-oriented “science of translation has continued strongly in Germany, but the concept of equivalence associated with it has declined.Germany has seen the rise of theor

13、ies centred on text types and text purpose, while the Hallidayan influence of discourse analysis and systemic functional grammar, which vies language as a communicative act in a sociocultural context, has been prominent over the past decades, especially in Australia and the UK.The late 1970s and 198

14、0s also saw the rise of a descriptive approach that had its origins in comparative literature and Russian Formalism.The polysystemists have worked with a Belgium-based group and the UK-based scholars.The 1990s saw the incorporation of new schools and concepts, with Canadian-based translation and gen

15、der research led by Sherry Simon, the Brazilian cannibalist school promoted by Else Vieira, postcolonial translation theory.II. Translation theory before the twentieth century2.1 “Word-for-word or “sense-for-senseUp until the second half of the twentieth century, translation theory seemed locked in

16、what George Steiner calls a sterile debate over the “triad of “literal, free and “faithful translation. The distinction goes back to Cicero and St Jerome.Cicero said,keeping the same ideas and formsbut in language which conforms to our usageI preserved the general style and force of the language. He

17、 disparaged word-for-word translation.St Jerome said,where even the syntax contains a mysteryI render not word-for-word, but sense-for-sense.2.2 Martin LutherLuther follows St Jerome in rejecting a word-for-word translation strategy since it would be unable to convey the same meaning as the ST and w

18、ould sometimes be incomprehensible.He focuses on the TL and the TT reader and his famous quote: You must ask the mother at home, the children in the street, the ordinary man in the market and look at their mouths, how they speak, and translate that way; then theyll understand and see that youre spea

19、king to them in German.2.3 Faithfulness, spirit and truthFlora Amos notes that early translators often differed considerably in the meaning they gave to terms such as “faithfulness, “accuracy and even the word “translation itself.Louis Kelly in The True Interpreter calls the “inextricably tangled te

20、rms “fidelity, spirit and “truth.Kelly considers that it was not until the twelfth century that truth was fully equated with “content. By the seventeenth century, fidelity had come to be generally regarded as more than just fidelity to words, and spirit lost the religious sense and was thenceforth u

21、sed solely in the sense of the creative energy of a text or language.2.4 Early attempts at systematic translation theory: Dryden, Dolet and TytlerFor Amos, the England of the seventeenth centurywith Denham, Cowley and Drydenmarked an important step forward in translation theory with deliberate, reas

22、oned statements, unmistakable in their purpose and meaning.John Dryden reduces all translations to three categories: metaphrase, paraphrase and imitation. Dryden thus prefers paraphrase, advising that metaphrase and imitation be avoided. He is author-oriented.Etienne Dolet is TL-reader-oriented and

23、sets out five principles in his 1540 manuscript The Way of Translating Well from One Language into Another: 1. The translator must perfectly understand the sense and material of the original author, although he should feel free to clarify obscurities.2. The translator should have a perfect knowledge

24、 of both SL and TL, so as not to lessen the majesty of the language.3. The translator should avoid word-for-word renderings.4. The translator should avoid Latinate and unusual forms.5. The translator should assemble and liaise words eloquently to avoid clumsiness. Alexander Fraser Tytler has three g

25、eneral “laws or “rules:1. The translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work.2. The style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of the original.3. The translation should have all the ease of the original composition.2.5 Schleiermacher and th

26、e valorization of the foreignWhile the 17th century had been about imitation and the 18th century about the translators duty to recreate the spirit of the ST for the reader of the time, the Romanticism of the early nineteenth century discussed the issues of translatability or untranslatability.In 18

27、13, the German theologian and translator Friedrich Schleiermacher wrote On The Different Methods of Translating and put forward a Romantic approach to interpretation based on the individuals inner feeling and understanding.He first distinguishes two different types of translator working on two diffe

28、rent types of text:1. the “Dolmetscher, who translates commercial texts;2. the “bersetzer, who works on scholarly and artistic texts.How to bring the ST writer and the TT reader together is the real question. He considers there to be only two paths open for the “true translator: Either the translato

29、r leaves the writer alone as much as possible and moves the reader toward the writer, or he leaves the reader alone as much as and moves the writer toward the reader.Schleiermachers consideration of different text type becomes more prominent in Reisss text typology. The “alienating and “naturalizing

30、 opposites are taken up by Venuti as “foreignization and “domestication. Additionally, the vision of a “language of translation is pursued by Walter Benjamin and the description of the hermeneutics of translation is apparent in George Steiners “hermeneutic motion.2.6 Translation theory of the nineti

31、eth and early twentieth centuries in BritainIn Britain, the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century focused on the status of the ST and the form of the TL.Francis Newman emphasized the foreignness of the work by a deliberately archaic translation.Matthew Arnold advocated a transparent tr

32、anslation method.2.7 Towards contemporary translation theoryGeorge Steiner lists a small number of 14 writers who represent “very nearly the sum total of those who have said anything fundamental or new about translation, includes St Jerome, Luther, Dryden and Schleiermacher and also takes us into th

33、e 20th century with Ezra Pound and Walter Benjamin, amongst others.He covers a range of theoretical ideas in this period: We have seen how much of the theory of translationif there is one as distinct from idealized recipespivots monotonously around undefined alternatives: letter or “spirit, word or

34、“sense. The dichotomy is assumed to have analyzable meaning. This is the central epistemological weakness and sleight of hand.Translation theory in the second half of the 20th century made various attempts to redefine the concepts “literal and “free in operational terms, to describe “meaning in scie

35、ntific terms, and to put together systematic taxonomies of translation phenomena.Case studiesThe criteria for assessing the translations are given:1. accuracy: the correct transfer of information and evidence of complete comprehension.2. the appropriate choice of vocabulary, idiom, terminology and r

36、egister;3. cohesion, coherence and organization;4. accuracy in technical aspects of punctuation, etc.III. Equivalence and equivalent effect3.1 Roman Jakobson: the nature of linguistic meaning and equivalenceIn his paper “On linguistic aspects of translation, he describes three kinds of translation:

37、intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic translation and he goes on to examine key issue of interlingual translation, notably linguistic meaning and equivalence.Jakobson approaches a now-famous definition: “Equivalence in difference is the cardinal problem of language and the pivotal concern of

38、linguistics. He thinks poetry is “untranslatable, which requires “creative transposition.3.2 Nida and “the science of translating3.2.1 The nature of meaning: advances in semantics and pragmaticsMeaning is broken down into linguistic meaning, referential meaning and emotive meaning. There are three t

39、echniques: hierarchical structuring, componential analysis and semantic structure analysis.3.2.2 The influence of ChomskyNoam Chomskys generative-transformational model analyzes sentences into a series of related levels governed by rules. The key features of this model can be summarized:1. Phrase-st

40、ructure rules generate an underlying or deep structure which is2. transformed by transformational rules relating one underlying structure to another, to produce.3. a final surface structure, which itself is subject to phonological and morphemic rules.Nida presents a three-stage system of translation

41、 (analysis, transfer and restructuring).This involves analysis using generative-transformational grammars four types of functional class: events, objects, abstracts and relationals.3.2.3 Formal and dynamic equivalence and the principle of equivalent effectFor Nida, the success of the translation dep

42、ends above all on achieving equivalent response. It is one of the “four basic requirements of a translation, which are1 making sense;2 conveying the spirit and manner of the original;3 having a natural and easy form of expression;4 producing a similar response.3.3 Newmark: semantic and communicative

43、 translationIn Newmarks Approaches to Translation and A Textbook of Translation, he suggests narrowing the gap by replacing the old terms with those of “semantic and “communicative translation.3.4 Koller: Korrespondenz and AquivalenzWerner Koller examines more closely the concept of equivalence and

44、its linked term correspondence. And he also goes on to describe five different types of equivalence: denotative, connotative, text-normative, pragmatic and formal equivalence.IV. The translation shift approach4.1 Vinay and Darbelnets modelThe two general translation strategies identified by Vinay an

45、d Darbelnet are direct translation and oblique translation, which hark back to the “literal vs. free division.The two strategies comprise seven procedures, of which direct translation covers are borrowing, calque, literal translation, transposition and modulation and of which oblique translation inc

46、ludes are equivalence and adaptation.The seven main translation categories are described as operating on three levels; these three levels reflect the main structural elements of the book. They are: the lexicon, syntactic structure and the message.A further more important parameter taken into account

47、 by Vinay and Darbelnet is that of servitude and option.They continued by giving s list of five steps for the translator to follow in moving from ST to TT: 1. Identity the units of translation.2. Examine the SL text, evaluating the descriptive, affective and intellectual content of the units.3. Reco

48、nstruct the metalinguistic context of the message.4. Evaluate the stylistic effects.5. Produce and revise the TT.They consider the unit of translation to be a combination of a “lexicological unit and a “unit of thought.4.2 Catford and translation “shiftsCatford makes an important distinction between formal correspondence and textual equivalence, which was developed by Koller.Catford considers two kinds of shift: shift of level and shift of category.Most of Catfords analysis is given over to category shifts. These are subdivided into f