CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Knowing your own language

When translating, you have to be competent and sensitive in your own language apart
from knowing the foreign one and the subject. You must be able to write in your own
language dexterously, clearly, economically and resourcefully.
Being good at writing means:
1. Using appropriate words in the appropriate order
2. Making flexible use of the abundant grammatical resources
3. Having sense of order and pertinence (beginning, body and conclusion)
A translator has to have a flair and a feel for his own language, a sixth sense
compounded of intelligence, sensitivity, intuition and knowledge. This is usually used in
the final revision.
Translation according to:
Newmark: it is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the
author intended the text. Although it seems easy, it is not. You cannot simply reproduce
the original by transferring as many SL words to the TL as possible.
Catford: translating consists on the replacement of textual material in one language
(SL) by equivalent textual material in another language (TL). As a process, it is
unidirectional (from the SL to the TL in only one way).
Steiner: translating is understanding.
Nida: translating in producing in the receptor language (also called terminal or target
language) the closest natural equivalent to the message in the source language, first in
meaning and secondly in style. (Garca Yebra agrees with it).

Directions in which a text is pulled

9. The truth (the focus of the matter)

1. SL writer

5. TL readership

2. SL norms

6. TL norms
TEXT

3. SL culture

7. TL culture

4. SL setting

8. TL setting

10. Translator
!

1. The individual style or idiolect (the way in which a particular person uses language)
of the author
2-6. The conventional grammatical and lexical usage
3-7. Content items referring specifically to each language culture
4-8. The typical form of a text as influenced by tradition at the time
9. What is being described or reported, ascertained or verified.
10. The views and prejudices of the translator
There are other tensions in translation: sound and sense, emphasis (word order) and
naturalness (grammar), the figurative and the literal, semantic (intrinsic) and pragmatic
(extrinsic) meaning. Translation may seem impossible but everything is translatable.
And even though a satisfactory translation is always possible, a good translator will
never be satisfied with it.
Translation emerged as a profession not many years ago and it is practised in
international organisations, government departments, public companies and translation
agencies. It is seen as a collaborative process between translators, revisers,
terminologists, writers and clients towards a general agreement.
Everything said in one language can be expressed in another on condition that the
two languages belong to cultures that have reached a comparable degree of
development. FALSE
Translation is an instrument of education as well as of truth precisely because it has to
reach readers whose cultural and educational level differs from that of the readers of the
original. No language, no culture is so primitive that it cannot embrace the terms and
concepts of, for example, computer technology. Such translation involves a longer
process and will result in a longer text as it will include many explanations.

Levels of translation: Translation is:

1. A science: it entails the knowledge and verification of the facts and the language
that describes them
2. A skill: it requires appropriate language and acceptable usage
3. An art: it is the creative level of translation
4. A matter of taste: a translator makes his own choices, which distinguish his
translation from the rest, reflecting his individualism.
Translation as a means of:
1. Communication: it is used for multilingual notices, for instructions issued by
exporting companies, for tourist publicity, for official documents, for reports,
papers, articles, correspondence, and textbooks to convey information, advice
and recommendations for every branch of knowledge.
2. Transmitting culture: for example, during Renaissance many Greek works were
translated into many national languages as a response to the revival of learning
3. Transmitting the truth: it is a force of progress
4. Learning a foreign language: it is a two-edged instrument as it demonstrates the
learners knowledge of the foreign language either as a form of control or to
exercise his intelligence in order to develop his competence.
Play element in translation: the personal pleasure derived from the translation is the
excitement of trying to solve a thousand small problems in the context of a large one. A
translation can be seen as a mystery, a jigsaw or even a game because the chase after
words and facts is unremitting and requires imagination. There is attraction in the search
for the right word and finding it gives the translator relief.
Theory of translation
A translator is continually faced with choices and in making his choice he is following a
theory of translation.
In a narrow sense, a translation theory is concerned with the translation method
appropriately used for a certain type of text, and it is therefore dependent on a
functional theory of language.
In a wider sense, translation theory is the body of knowledge that we have about
translating, extending from general principles to guidelines, suggestions and hints.
Translation theory in action, translation theory used operationally for the purpose of
reviewing all the options and then making the decisions, is a frame of reference for
translation and translation criticism, relating first to complete texts and then descending
until reaching word level, bearing in mind neologisms, metaphors, cultural and
institutional terms.
How translation theory works: what translation theory does is, first, to identify and
define a translation problem; second, to indicate all the factors that have to be taken into
account in solving the problem; third, to list all the possible translation procedures; and
finally, to recommend the most suitable translation procedure, plus the appropriate
translation.
New elements in translation now

1. The emphasis on the readership and the setting: naturalness, ease of

understanding and an appropriate register
2. Expansion of topics to virtually every topic of writing
3. Increase in variety of text formats
4. Standardisation of terminology
5. The formation of translator items and the recognition of the revisers role
6. The impact of linguistics, sociolinguistics and translation theory
7. Translation as a means of transmitting knowledge and culture

CHAPTER 2: THE ANALYSIS OF A TEXT

Reading the text
You start reading the original for two purposes: 1) to understand what it is about and 2)
to analyse it from a translators point of view. You have to determine its intention and
the way it is written for the purpose of selecting a suitable translation methods and
identifying particular and recurrent problems.
General reading: to get the gist, to understand the subject and the concept using
textbooks, encyclopaedias and specialist papers.
Close reading: in order to get the exact meaning of words both out of and in context.
Everything that does not make sense in its context can be looked up: common words, to
ensure that they are not used figuratively; neologisms; acronyms, to find their TL
equivalents, which may be non-existing and should not be invented; figures and
measures, converting to TL units where appropriate; names of people and places, and
almost all the words beginning with capital letters.
Translating is like an iceberg: the tip is the translation; the iceberg is the activity
The intention of the text: it represents the SL writers attitude to the subject matter.
There is always a point of view expressed somewhere by means of modals, adjectives,
linkers, etc.
The intention of the translator: it may be the same of the author of the SL text or it
may vary depending on what he is translating, as he may have to adapt the original text
to a different readership.
Text styles by Nida
1. Narrative: a dynamic sequence of events, where the emphasis is on the verb or
empty verbs plus verb-nouns or phrasal verbs (He made a sudden appearance. //
He burst in), action verbs and connections.
2. Description: it is static, with emphasis on linking verbs, adjectives and
adjectival nouns
3. Discussion: a treatment of ideas, with emphasis on abstract nouns, verbs of
thought, mental activity, logical argument and connectives. It must be coherent
(make sense) and cohesive (connecting things in a reasonable way)
4. Dialogue: with emphasis on colloquialisms, idioms, phrasal verbs and
phaticisms.

The readership
First you have to characterise the SL readership and then the TL one and see how much
attention you have to pay to it, bearing in mind the level of education, the class, age and
sex or assessing if it is marked.
The average text for translation tends to be for an educated, middle-class readership in
an informal, not colloquial style. Student translators tend to use colloquial and intimate
phrases (more and more for increasingly or got well for recovered) and
excessively familiar phrasal verbs. Another common error is to use formal or official
register, in an attempt to show his knowledge and interest in the subject.
Stylistic scales
Scale of generality or difficulty
1. Simple
2. Popular
3. Neutral: using basic vocabulary only
4. Educated
5. Technical
6. Opaquely technical: comprehensible
only to an expert

Scale of emotional tone

1. Intense: profuse use of intensifiers
2. Warm
3. Factual: cool
4. Understatement: cold
The official style is likely to be factual,
whilst colloquialisms and slang tend to be
emotive.

Attitude: you have to assess the standard of the writer, how his way of writing relates to
his culture (if it is accepted or arbitrary)
Setting: have to bear in mind where your translation is going to be published and who is
going to read it, if they are experts, educated laymen or the uninformed.
The quality of the writing
Consider the quality of the writing and the authority of the text.
The quality of writing has to be judged in relation to the authors intention and/or the
requirements of the subject-matter. This may seem subjective but it is a decision not
subjective but with a subjective element which you have to make, using any experience
of literary criticism you have bearing in mind that you have to see to what extent the
words used in the SL text make a clear representation of the facts.
The authority of the text is derived from good writing; but also independently from the
status of the SL writer. The expressive texts have to be translated closely, matching the
way of writing of the SL author, while informative texts have to be translated in the best
style the translator thinks matches the original.
Connotations (significado) and denotations (significante): all texts have connotations,
an aura of ideas and feelings suggested by lexical words, and all texts have an
underlife. In a non-literary text the denotations (their dictionary meaning) of a word
normally come before its connotations, whilst in a literal text connotations come first.

The last reading: you should note the cultural aspects of the SL text: neologisms,
metaphors, cultural words, institutional terms, proper names, technical terms and
untranslatable words (those that do not have a ready equivalent in the TL, such as
descriptive verbs or mental words). Those items should be studied first in context and
then out of it, with the help of dictionaries, in order to establish their semantic
boundaries)

CHAPTER 3: THE PROCESS OF TRANSLATING

Operational description of the translating procedure: theory of translating
It begins with choosing a method of approach and then the translator works at four
levels:
1. Text level: the level of language where we begin and continually go back to
2. Referential level: the level of objects and events and it is an essential part of the
comprehension and of the reproduction process
3. Cohesive level: it is a grammatical level which traces the train of thoughts and
the tone of the SL text. It encompasses both comprehension and reproduction
4. The level of naturalness: it includes the use of the common appropriate language
in a certain situation. This level is only concerned with reproduction.
Finally there is the revision procedure which depends on the situation.
The relation of translating to translation theory
The purpose of the theory of translating is to be of service to the translator, it is a link
between the translation theory and the practice. It derives from a translation theory
framework which proposes that when the main purpose of a text is to convey
information (informative texts) or to convince the reader (vocative texts), a method of
translation must be natural, on the other hand, if it is an expressive text, with the
authoritative style of an author, the translation must reflect any deviation from a
natural style.
The level of naturalness binds translation theory to translating theory and this one to
practice.
The approach
There are two approaches to translating:
1. Start translating sentence by sentence for the first paragraph or chapter to get the
feeling tone of the text, and then read the rest of the SL text.
2. Read the whole text two or three times, and find the intention, register, tone,
mark the difficult words and passages and then start translating.
The first method is more suitable for a literal text and the second for a technical or an
institutional one. The first method is time-wasting as it leaves a lot of revision to do on
the early part. However, the second one is usually preferable because it offers a
translational analysis of the text. It is used for harder texts while the first one is used for
relatively easy texts.
In translation there are no cast-iron rules, everything has to be discussed. In addition to
that the heart of translation theory are problems and it ca be considered as a large
number of generalisations of translation problems.

The textual level

The text is your base level when you translate and it is also the last level in the process
of translating. When you work on a text, you intuitively and automatically transpose the
SL grammar into their ready TL equivalents and you translate the lexical units into the
sense that appears immediately appropriate in the context of the sentence. It is the level
of literal translation, the level of translationese you have to eliminate, but it also acts a
corrective of paraphrase and helps you reduce the amount of synonyms when there is no
need to use them.
The referential level
You have to be able to read a sentence and summarise it in crude lay terms or simplify it
in order to understand what it is about and what the writers point of view is. When a
sentence is not clear you have to gain perspective and create a picture of the reality
behind the text for which you are liable (responsible) by referring to any additional
information that helps you understand (for example, encyclopaedias).
The referential level goes hand in hand with the textual level because it is the level
where you sort out the text and clarify all the linguistic difficulties you found in the
textual level. But it is on the textual level where you have to compose your translation
(bearing in mind the particularities of the SL meaning and trying to convey them into
the TL); no matter how tempting it is to remain in a simpler referential level.
The cohesive level
It links the first and the second level. It follows the structure and the moods of the text.
The structure follows the train of thought through the use of connective words linking
sentences (from known information to new information). There is a sequence of time,
space and logic in the text.
The mood of the text means tracing the thread of the text through its value-laden and
value-free passages which may be expressed by nouns or adjectives. Therefore, you
have to be able to find the difference between positive, negative and neutral.
The cohesive level is a regulator: it secures coherence and adjusts emphasis. In this
level you reconsider the lengths of paragraphs and sentences, the formulation of the title
and the tone of the conclusion. The findings of discourse analysis are pertinent.
The level of naturalness
For the vast majority of texts (oddly written authoritative texts are omitted here) you
have to ensure: 1) that your translation makes sense, and 2) that it reads naturally, that it
is written in ordinary language, the common grammar, idioms and words that meet that
kind of situation. You can do this by temporarily disengaging yourself from the SL text,
and by reading your own translation as though no original existed. In the case of
expressive texts, you have to gauge the degree of its deviation from naturalness, and
reflect it in your translation. Therefore, the level of naturalness is present when
translating any kind of text.
You have to bear in mind that this level is both lexical and grammatical, it not only
include common appropriate words for a specific context but also the most frequent
syntactic structures.

In communicative translation, naturalness is essential and that is why you have to be

familiar with the TL and detach yourself from the SL text when you review the
translation.
Naturalness is easily defined but not easily achieved. It comprises the usage of a variety
of idioms or styles or registers determined by the setting.
Natural usage is not the same as ordinary language (plain non-technical idiom used for
philosophical explanation) nor basic language (between formal and informal, easily
understood). The unnatural translation is marked by interference, primarily from the SL
text. Thus you have to pay attention to:
1. Word order: adverbs are the most delicate indicators of naturalness. He
regularly sees me on Tuesdays, stress on regularly. He sees me regularly on
Tuesdays, no stress. On Tuesdays he sees me regularly, stress on Tuesdays
2. One-to-one translation which makes common structures unnatural (He put his
arm under that of the young man from French)
3. Cognate words: words that sound natural when you translate them but have the
wrong meaning,
4. The correct of gerunds, infinitives and verb-nouns
5. Old-fashioned, refined or elevated usage of words
6. Use of articles, progressive tenses, noun-compounding, collocations, etc
Naturalness is not something that you wait to acquire by instinct, you work towards it.
There is no universal naturalness because it depends on the relationship between the
writer and the readership and the topic of situation.
At this level accuracy becomes most important. Accuracy lies within certain narrow
range of words and structures, it is not an absolute. It represents a maximum degree of
correspondence between the text as a whole and its various units of translation and the
extralinguistic reality.
The unit of translating
Normally you translate sentence by sentence, running the risk of not paying enough
attention to the sentence-joins. If the translation of a sentence has no problem, it is
based firmly on literal translation, plus automatic and spontaneous transpositions and
shifts, changes in word order, etc. The problem appears when this procedure is no
adequate. That is when you bear in mind each word meaning, as this unit of translation
is your point of departure, you create and interpret in the basis of words.
Since the sentence is the basic unit of thought, it is the unit of translation. However,
sometimes it is difficult to make sense and you have problems with grammar due to the
sentences length, or the use of archaic, ambiguously placed or faulty structures. You
can clarify its meaning by making shifts and modulations, for example. But if those
structures are an essential part of the text, then you should reproduce them.
Translation of lexis
The commonest difficulties are with words and they are of two kinds: 1) you do not
understand them or 2) you find them hard to translate. Context helps you understand the
meaning of a word and you also have to bear in mind that many common nouns have
four types of meaning: 1) physical or material, 2) figurative, 3) technical, and 4)
colloquial.

Colloquial meanings are tied to collocations or fixed phrases. The technical meanings
are not monosemous and may have many meanings. Most verbs, nouns and adjectives
can be used figuratively. Words may have an archaic or regional sense, and you can
solve this problem by consulting dictionaries.
The important thing is that you have to force the word into sense because the writer
chose it because it expressed what he wanted to say and thus made sense.
You always over or under-translate because the SL words and their TL equivalent are
nor identical.
Translation of proper names
Look up all the proper names you do not know. In the case of geographical names,
check the updated usage, bear in mind the tendency of place-names to revert to their
non-naturalised names but do not over do it.
Be careful with proper names in medical texts, as a drug can be marketed by different
brands in different countries or it may be just a formula.
Check the spelling of all proper names.
Revision
During the final revision you try to pare down your version in the interest of elegance
and force, at the same time allowing some redundancy to facilitate reading and ensuring
that no substantial sense component is lost. Your text is dependent on another, but in
communicative translation you have to use a language that comes naturally to you,
whilst in semantic translation you have to empathise with the author and discover a way
of writing to translate accurately (the more you feel with the author, the better you are
likely to translate).
Be accurate. Do not change words that have plain one-to-one translations just because
you think it sounds better than the original.
Translation can be regarded as scholarship if:
1. the SL text is challenging and demanding
2. the text evidently requires some interpretations
3. the text requires additional explanation in the form of footnote
Translation qualifies as research if:
1. it requires substantial academic research
2. it requires a preface of considerable length, giving evidence of this research and
stating the translators approach to his original
3. the translated text is accompanied by apparatus notes, a glossary and a
bibliography
Translation as an art: when a poem is translated into a poem or when translating any
imaginative piece of writing.

CHAPTER 4: LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS, TEXTCATEGORIES AND TEXT-TYPES

The expressive function

The core is the mind of the writer who expresses his feelings irrespectively of any
response
The characteristic expressive text-types are:
1. Serious imaginative literature: of the four principal types (lyrical poetry, short
stories, novels and plays), lyrical poetry is the most intimate expression while
plays are more evidently addressed to a large audience.
2. Authoritative statements: these texts derive their authority from the high status
or the reliability and linguistic competence of their authors. Typical authoritative
statements are political speeches, documents, etc. by ministers or party leaders,;
statutes and legal documents; scientific, philosophical and academic works
written by acknowledged authorities
3. Autobiography, essays, personal correspondence: these are expressive when
they are personal effusions, when the readers are a remote background
Personal components of these texts: unusual collocations, original metaphors,
untranslatable words, unconventional syntax, neologisms, strange words, all that is
often characterised as idiolect as opposed to ordinary language.
The informative function
The core is the truth, the external situation and the facts of the topics.
Texts of this type are concerned with any topic of knowledge and the format is often
standard: a textbook, a technical report, an article in a newspaper or a periodical, a
scientific paper, a thesis, minutes or agenda of a meeting.
Formal, non-emotive, technical style is used for academic papers, characterised in
English by passives, present and perfect tenses, literal language, Latinised vocabulary,
jargon, multi-noun compounds with empty verbs and no metaphors.
Neutral or informal style with defined technical terms is used for textbooks
characterised by first person plurals, present tenses, dynamic active verbs, and basic
conceptual metaphors.
An informal, warm style is used for popular science or art books characterised by
simple grammatical structures, a wide range of vocabulary to accommodate definitions
and illustrations, and stock of metaphors and simple vocabulary.
A familiar, non-technical style is used for popular journalism characterised by surprising
metaphors, short sentences, Americanise, unconventional punctuation, adjectives before
proper names and colloquialisms.
Informative texts constitute the vast majority of translations and many of them are
poorly written and it is the translators job to correct them.
The vocative function
The core is the readership.
The typical vocative text-types are: notices, instructions, publicity, propaganda,
persuasive writing, and popular fiction.
The first factor in all vocative texts is the relationship between the writer and the
readership, which can be expressed through the forms of address: vos/usted, infinitives,

imperatives, subjunctives, indicatives, impersonal, passives, first/family names and tags

such as please, which show whether the relationship is symmetrical or asymmetrical.
The second factor is that the language must be immediately comprehensible to the
readership.
The aesthetic function
Language designed to please the senses through sounds and metaphors (these have to be
preserved intact in translation). The sound effects consist of onomatopoeia, alliteration,
assonance, rhyme, metre, intonation, stress and descriptive verbs of movement and
action. The types of texts are: poetry, nonsense and childrens verse, and jingles.
The phatic function
It is used for maintaining friendly contact with the addressee. Apart from the tone of
voice, it occurs in the form standard phrases or phaticisms in spoken language (How
are you?, You know, in England What an awful day). Some of these are universal
and others are cultural. In written language, phaticisms such as of course, naturally
and undoubtedly try to win the confidence and credulity of the reader.
The metalingual function
It indicates the languages ability to explain, name and criticise its own features. When
these are more or less universal there is no problem in translating, but when they are
language-specific they must be translated bearing in mind the contextual factors with
detailed explanations, examples and translations down to a culturally-neutral term.

CHAPTER 5: TRANSLATION METHODS

The translation methods relate to the whole text.
The central problem of translating has always been whether to translate literally or
freely. Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, many writers favoured some kind
of free translation. Then at the turn of the nineteenth century, when anthropology
suggested that the linguistic barriers were insuperable and that the language was a
product of culture, translation was seen as impossible and if it were attempted at all it
had to be as literal as possible.
Newmarks classification of translation methods
SL emphasis
Word-for-word translation
Literal translation
Faithful translation
Semantic translation

TL emphasis
Adaptation
Free translation
Idiomatic translation
Communicative translation

Word-for-word translation: it is often demonstrated as interlinear translation, with the

TL word immediately below the SL words. The SL word order is preserved and the
words translated remain out of context. Cultural words are translated literally. The main

use of word-for-word translation is either to understand the mechanics of the SL or as a

pretranslation process of a difficult text.
Literal translation: the SL grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest TL
equivalents but the lexical words are singly out of context.
Faithful translation: it attempts to reproduce the precise contextual meaning of the
original within the constraints of the TL grammatical structures. It transfers cultural
words and preserves the degree of grammatical and lexical abnormality in the
translation. It attempts to be completely faithful to the intentions and the text-realisation
of the SL writer.
Semantic translation: it differs from the faithful translation only in as far as it must take
more account of the aesthetic value of the SL text. It may translate less important
cultural words by culturally neutral functional terms but not by cultural equivalent. It is
more flexible than faithful translation, which is uncompromising and dogmatic.
Adaptation: it is the freest form of translation. It is used mainly for plays and poetry;
the themes, characters and plots are usually preserved but the SL culture is converted to
the TL culture and the text, rewritten.
Free translation: it reproduces the matter without the manner, or the content without
the form of the original. Usually it is a paraphrase much longer than the original, often
called intralingual translation, and not translation at all.
Idiomatic translation: it reproduces the message of the original but tends to use
colloquialisms and idioms where these do not exist in the original.
Communicative translation: it attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the
original in such a way that both context and language are readily acceptable and
comprehensible to the readership.
Semantic translation

Communicative translation

Both methods fulfil the two main aims of translation: accuracy and economy
Written at the authors linguistic level

Written at the readerships linguistic level

Used for expressive texts

Used for informative and vocative texts

Expressive components are rendered

closely, if not literally

Expressive components are normalised or

toned down

Cultural components tend to be

transferred intact

Cultural components are transferred and

explained with cultural neutral terms in
informative texts and replaced by cultural
equivalents in vocative texts

Badly or inaccurately written passages are

preserved

Badly or inaccurately written passages

should be corrected

Intuitive empathy: it is personal and

individual, follows the thought processes
of the authors, tends to over-translate

Contextual meaning: it is social,

concentrates on the message and tends to
be simple, clear and brief

Normally inferior to the original as there

is both cognitive and pragmatic loss

Often better than the original

It has to interpret

It has to explain

It follows a single authority: the author

It serves a putative large and not well

defined readership, therefore it allows the
translator more freedom than semantic
translation

Equivalent effect
The equivalent effect is the desirable result of a translation and it means to produce the
same effect (or one as close as possible) on the readership of the translation as was
obtained on the readership of the original.
It is an unlikely result in two cases: 1) if the purpose of the SL text is to affect and the
TL translation is to inform, and 2) if there is a pronounced cultural gap between the SL
and the TL text.
In the communicative translation of vocative texts, equivalent effect is essential: it is the
criterion by which the effectiveness of the text is to be assessed.
In informative texts, equivalent effect is desirable only in respect of their insignificant
emotional impact.
In semantic translation, the first problem is that for serious imaginative literature, there
are individual readers rather than a readership. Secondly, the translator is essentially
trying to render the effect the SL text has on him. The more universal the text, the more
a broad equivalent effect is possible. And the more cultural the text, the less is
equivalent effect even conceivable unless the reader has a wide knowledge of the SL
culture. Cultural concessions (a shift to a generic term) are possible only where the
cultural word is marginal, not important for local colour, and has no relevant
connotative or symbolic meaning.
Communicative translation, being set at the readers level of language and knowledge,
is more likely to create equivalent effect than is semantic translation at the writers
level.
Methods and text-categories
Vocative and informative texts are translated too literally and expressive texts not
literally enough.
In informative texts, translationese, bad writing and lack of confidence in the
appropriate linguistic register often go hand in hand. On the other hand, in expressive
texts, translation is seen as an exercise in style that turns the final version in a sequence
of synonyms that sometimes do not even reproduce the SL words core meaning.

In expressive texts the unit of translation is likely to be small, since words rather than
sentences contain the finest meaning. Any type and length of clich must be translated
by its TL counterpart.
Informative texts are translated more closely than vocative ones, and in principle consist
of third person sentences, non-emotive style and past tenses.
The translation of vocative texts immediately involves translation in the problem of the
second person, the social factor which varies in its grammatical and lexical reflection
from one language to another.
Translating
It is dangerous to translate more than a sentence or two before reading the first two or
three paragraphs. The more difficult the text is, the more preliminary work you have to
do before translating a sentence. Translate by sentences whenever you can, whenever
you can get the general sense and then make sure you have accounted for each word in
the SL text. Translate virtually by words first if they are technical, whether they are
linguistic, cultural or referential and appear relatively context free. Later, you have to
contextualise them and be prepared to back-track if you have opted the wrong technical
meaning.
Other methods
Service translation: from ones language of habitual use into another language
Plain prose translation: it is the prose translation of poems and poetic drama. Stanzas
become paragraphs, prose punctuation is introduced, original metaphors and SL
retained, whilst no sound-effects are reproduced
Information translation: this conveys all the information in a non-literary text,
sometimes rearranged in a more logical form or partially summarised.
Cognitive translation: this reproduces the information in a SL text converting the SL
grammar to its normal TL transpositions, normally reducing any figurative to literal
language.
Academic translation: it reduces the original SL text to an elegant idiomatic educated
TL version which follows a literary register.

CHAPTER 8: THE OTHER TRANSLATION

PROCEDURES
Translation procedures are used for sentences and the smaller units of language.
Transference
It is the process of transferring a SL word to a TL text as a translation procedure. It
includes transliteration, which relates to the conversion of different alphabets. The word
becomes a loan word, for example, coup dtat (French diplomatic word). Generally,
only cultural objects or concepts related to small groups or cult should be transferred.
The following are normally transferred:
1. Names of all living (except the Pope and one or two royals) and most dead people

2. Geographical and topographical names including newly independent countries, unless

they already have recognised translations
3. Names of periodical and newspapers
4. Title of literary works, plays and films that have not been translated so far
5. Names of private companies and institutions
6. Names of public or nationalised institutions, unless they have a recognised translation
7. Street names, addresses, etc.
Where appropriate a culturally-neutral third term (for example, a functional equivalent)
should be added.
In regional novels and essays, cultural words are often transferred to give local colour,
to attract the reader and to give a sense of intimacy between the text and the reader.
Semi-cultural words (abstract mental words associated with a particular period, country
or individual: Enlightenment), in principle, should be translated with the transferred
word and the functional equivalent between brackets if necessary. These words are
usually transferred for snob reasons, such as foreign is posh.
The argument in favour of transference is that it shows respect for the SL culture.
The argument against it is that the translators job is to translate and to explain.
Naturalisation
This procedure succeeds transference and adapts SL word first to the normal
pronunciation and then to the normal morphology of the TL.
Cultural equivalent
This is an approximate translation where a SL cultural word is translated by a TL
cultural word, for example, the Palais Bourbon is translated as the French
Westminster. Their translation uses are limited, as they are not accurate, but they can
be used in general texts, publicity and for explanations to readers who do not know the
SL culture. Occasionally there may be purely functionally, hardly descriptively
equivalents such as tea break for caf-pause, but they are even more restricted in
translation, used if the term is of little importance or in popular fiction.
Functional equivalent
It is a common procedure applied to cultural words which consist in the use of a culturefree word, sometimes with a new specific term. The SL word is neutralised or
generalised, for example the Sejm is translated as the Polish Parliament. It is the
most accurate way of translating and deculturalising a cultural word. A similar
procedure is used when a SL technical word has no TL equivalent.
If the procedure is practised one to one, it is an under-translation, and if it is practised
one-to-two, it may be an over translation. For cultural terms couplets are used, those are
formed by the functional equivalent plus the transferred word.
Descriptive equivalent
Sometime description is preferred to function, for example, samurai is described as the
Japanese aristocracy from the eleventh to the nineteenth century, and its function was
to provide officers and administrators.

Synonymy
It consists on the use of a near TL equivalent to an SL word in a context where a precise
equivalent may or may not exist. A synonym is only appropriate where literal translation
is not possible and because the word is not important in the text. It is usually applied to
adjectives or adverbs of quality.
Through-translation (calque or loan translation)
It is the literal translation of common collocations, names of organisation, the
component of compounds and phrases for example, compliment of the season from
compliments de la saison. The most obvious examples of this procedure are the manes
of international organizations, which are usually known by their acronyms that may also
switch in various languages (NATO and OTAN, WHO and OMS). Through-translations
should be used only when they are already recognised terms.
Shifts or transpositions
It involves a change in the grammar from the SL to TL. Types:
1. Singular to plural
2. When an SL grammatical structure does not exist in the TL
3. When literal translation is grammatically possible but may not accord with
natural usage in the TL
4. Replacement of a virtual lexical gap by a grammatical structure
Other examples:
1. SL verb to TL noun
2. SL complex sentence to TL simple sentence (the following are standard
transposition from Romance languages to English)
3. SL adjective plus adjectival noun to TL adverb plus adjective
4. SL prepositional phrase to TL preposition
5. SL adverbial phrase to TL adverb
6. SL noun plus adjective of substance to TL noun plus noun
7. SL verb to TL verb plus verb-noun
Modulation
It is a variation through a change of viewpoint or perspective and very often of category
of thought. It is mandatory when there is a lexical gap. In all the other sentences the
procedure is potentially available, but you should not only use it when the translation is
not natural unless you do so. Examples:
1. Negated contrary (No dud to He acted at once, shallow to poco profundo)
2. Part for the whole
3. Abstract for complete
4. Cause for effect
5. One part for another (from cover to cover for de la primera a la ltima
pgina)
6. Reversal of terms
7. Active for passive (advisable where a reflexive is normally preferred)
8. Space for time
9. Intervals and limits

10. Change of symbols

Recognised translation
You should normally use the official or the generally accepted translation of any
institutional term. If appropriate, you can gloss it, indirectly showing your disagreement
with this official version.
Translation label
It is a provisional translation, usually for a new institutional term, which should be
made in inverted commas, which can later be discreetly withdrawn. It can be done
through literal translation.
Compensation
It occurs when loss of meaning, sound-effect, metaphor or pragmatic effect in one part
of a sentence is compensated in another part or in a contiguous sentence.
Componential analysis
It is the splitting up of a lexical unit into its sense component, often in one-to-two/three/
four translations.
Reduction and expansion
These are rather imprecise translation procedures. Reduction: science linguistique to
linguistics. Expansion: distrado to absent-minded (?)
Paraphrase
This is an amplification or explanation of the meaning of a segment of the text. It is
used in an anonymous text when it is poorly written, or has important implications and
omissions.
Other procedures: they show what sometimes happens in the process of translating, but
they are not usable procedures.
Equivalence (unfortunately named): it implies approximate equivalence accounting for
the same situation in different terms, different ways of rendering clichs and standard
aspects of language.
Adaptation: it is the use of a recognised equivalent between two situations; it is a matter
of cultural equivalence.
Couplets
Couplets, triplet, quadruplets combine two, three or four of procedures for dealing with
a single problem. They are particularly common for cultural words.
Notes, additions and glosses
The additional information a translator may have to add to his version is normally
cultural, technical or linguistic and it depends on the requirements of its readership. The
additional information may take various forms:
1. Within the text: as an alternative to the translated word, as an adjectival clause,
as a noun in apposition, as a participial group, in brackets, in parentheses () for

the longest additions and classifiers (Speyer as the city of Speyer, in West
Germany).
2. Footnotes (do not over use them and make them short)
3. Notes at the end of the chapter
4. Notes or glossary at the end of the book
Any additional information should not replace any statement or stretch the text, it is just
used to supplement and clarify the text.

CHAPTER 14: TECHNICAL TRANSLATION

Specialised translation is divided into technical and institutional translation. Technical
translation is potentially non-cultural and universal because the benefits of technology
are not confined to one speech community. In principle, terms should be translated,
whilst in institutional translation they should be transferred because they are cultural (if
they refer to international organisation they should be translated).
Technical translation is primarily distinguished from other forms of translations by
terminology (5-10% of the text). Its characteristic format is the technical report, but it
also includes instructions, manuals, notices and publicity.
As a technical variation is so varied in topic and often diverse in register, and also badly
written, it is not easy to make generalisations about it. And you should also bear in mind
that technology is developing continually, so you must be most up to date.
Technical style
It is free from emotive language, connotations, sound-effects and metaphors. Translators
have to rephrase poorly written language and convert metaphors to sense. You should
produce a better text than the original if the latter is badly written, but do not take risks
when it comes to terminology.
Terms
The best approach to terminology is to underline all the technical terms and then look
them up. The main problem is technical neologisms which are relatively context-free. If
they are context-bound, you are more likely to understand them, by eliminating the less
likely versions, as a term may have more than one meaning in on field and also in other
fields. That is why the purpose of new standardisation is to establish a single one-to-one
relationship between a referent and its name. The less important the referent, the more
likely the relationship is to hold; but when this referent becomes more common it may
acquire figurative meanings.
Greco-Latin terms are used for classification purposes, and in translation they serve as
internationalisms, and can be used as functional equivalent when a SL term for a natural
object (flora, fauna, etc.) is missing in the TL, since the referent is unknown in the TL
environment.
Varieties of technical style
Paepcke

Newmark

scientific

Academic: transferred Latin words

workshop level
everyday usage level

Professional: formal terms used by

experts
Popular: layman vocabulary

publicity/sales
Technical descriptive terms
The SL writer may use a descriptive term for three reasons:
1. the object is new, and has no name
2. it is being used as a familiar alternative, to avoid repetition
3. it is being used to make a contrast with another one
You should translate descriptive terms by its counterparts unless it is being used because
of the SL writers ignorance or negligence or because the appropriate technical term
does not exist in the SL (but it does in the TL). Conversely, you should use a descriptive
term when there is no TL equivalent for an SL technical term.
Beginning technical translation
A translator is more interested in understanding the description, the function and the
effect of a concept than the theories in which it is applied, systems and laws. You are
learning the language rather than the content of the subject but you have to be able to
understand things fully and draw back to what happens in real life. You have to check
internatiolisms and false friends to see if they are accepted and used in the register and
dialect you are using.
In science the language is concept-centred; in technology it is object centred. According
to Pinchuk, we live in a technological society. This society interchanges different and
various types of knowledge through informatics. These types of knowledge come from:
the results of pure science (the work of scientists, the theories and laws they make), the
research and the work of technologists. These areas are interrelated in the following
way: scientists apply the results of science (concepts, that is why science is conceptcentred) in reality and in doing so they face many problems which are tried to be solved
through research. Once research has found a solution, its the technologists work to
make it practical, that is, to create or invent a new device (that is why technology is
object-centred) that allows the scientists to apply the results of science in reality. The
knowledge that these areas produce is found in documents (results of science) and
patents (technologists), with other formats in between, such as report, papers, speeches,
lectures, etc. Those documents are written in many different languages and so
translation is used as a means of communication in order to make possible the
exchange, feedback and transmission of information among people from different
countries.
Translation method
SL text is the basis of the translation, no matter how the translation departs from it
owing to its different natural usage and if it has to be referentially more explicit than the
original. The SL text is therefore modified by the TL syntactic constraints and the
appropriate explanatory reference.
When you approach a technical text you read it first to understand it and then to assess
its nature, its degree of formality, its intention and the possible cultural differences and

professional differences between your readership and the original one. Next, you should
give your translation the framework of a recognised house-style. You have to translate
or transfer or, if not, account for everything and add footnotes if you think the
readership will find it useful.
The title
Descriptive titles are appropriate in technical texts, while allusive may be preferred for
expressive texts. The advantage of the title of a scientific article is that it normally states
the subject, but not always the purpose or intention of the process described; it is
usually a recall of the purpose of an operation rather than the minutiae of its stages
described in an article which makes it coherent and logical for the reader.
Misleading adjective plus nouns collocations for standardised terms are one of the most
common sources of error in technical translation. In non-standardised language,
transparent or motivated verb plus object, or subject plus verb collocations, can be
equally misleading and can lead to profession deformation.
In medical articles, the names of the authors and the addresses of their places of work
are transferred expect in cases: where a title has a recognised common translation
equivalent), where the name of a city is currently naturalised and where the name of the
institution is opaque so that a couplet may be useful for the reader. Names of the
countries are also translated.