Introduction

The present-day rapid developments of science and technology, as well as

the continuous growth of cultural, economic, and political relations between
nations, have confronted humanity with exceptional difficulties in the
assimilation of useful and necessary information. No way has yet been found
to solve the problems in overcoming language barriers and of accelerated
assimilation of scientific and technological achievements by either the
traditional or modern methods of teaching. A new approach to the process of
teaching and learning is, therefore, required if the world is to meet the needs
of today and tomorrow. Georgi Lozanov, Suggestologj and Outlines of
Suggestopedy (1971)

The study of translation and the training of professional translators is without

question an integral part of the explosion of both intercultural relations and the
transmission of scientific and technological knowledge; the need for a new approach
to the process of teaching and learning is certainly felt in translator and interpreter
training programs around the world as well. How best to bring student translators up
to speed, in the literal sense of helping them to learn and to translate rapidly and
effectively? How best to get them both to retain the linguistic and cultural knowledge
and to master the learning and translation skills they will need to be effective
professionals?
At present the prevailing pedagogical assumptions in translator training
programs are (1) that there is no substitute for practical experience — to learn how
to translate one must translate, translate, translate — and (2) that there is no way to
accelerate that process without damaging students' ability to detect errors in their
own work. Faster is generally better in the professional world, where faster
translators —provided that they continue to translate accurately — earn more
money; but it is generally not considered better in the pedagogical world, where
faster learners are thought to be necessarily careless, sloppy, or superficial.
This book is grounded in a simultaneous acceptance of assumption (1) and
rejection of assumption (2). There is no substitute for practical experience, and
translator training programs should continue to provide their students with as much
of it as they can. But there are ways of accelerating that process that do not simply
foster bad work habits.

1
 The methodological shift involved is from a pedagogy that places primary
emphasis on conscious analysis to a pedagogy that balances conscious analysis
with subliminal discovery and assimilation. The more consciously, analytically,
rationally, logically, systematically a subject is presented to students, and the more
consciously and analytically they are expected to process the materials presented,
the more slowly those materials are internalized.
And this is often a good thing. Professional translators need to be able to
slow down to examine a problematic word or phrase or syntactic structure or cultural
assumption painstakingly, with full analytical awareness of the problem and its
possible solutions. Slow analysis is also a powerful source of new knowledge.
Without the kinds of problems that slow the translation process down to a
snail's pace, the translator would quickly fall into a rut.
The premise of this book is, however, that in the professional world slow,
painstaking, analytical learning is the exception rather than the rule — and should
be in the academic world of translator training as well. All humans learn better,
faster, more effectively, more naturally, and more enjoy ably through rapid and
holistic subliminal channels. Conscious, analytical learning is a useful check on
more efficient learning channels; it is not, or at least it should not be, the only or
even main channel through which material is presented.
This book, therefore, is set up to shuttle between the two extremes of
subliminal or unconscious learning, the "natural" way people learn outside of class,
and conscious, analytical learning, the "artificial" way people are traditionally taught
in class. As teaching methods move away from traditional analytical modes, learning
speeds up and becomes more enjoyable and more effective; as it approaches the
subliminal extreme, students learn enormous quantities of material at up to ten times
the speed of traditional methods while hardly even noticing that they're learning
anything. Because learning is unconscious, it seems they haven't learned anything;
to their surprise, however, they can perform complicated tasks much more rapidly
and confidently and accurately than they ever believed possible.
Effective as these subliminal methods are, however, they are also somewhat
mindless, in the sense of involving very little critical reflection, metathinking, testing
of material against experience or reason. Translators need to be able to process
linguistic materials quickly and efficiently; but they also need to be able to recognize
problem areas and to slow down to solve them in complex analytical ways. The
main reason for integrating conscious with subliminal teaching methods is that

2
learners need to be able to test and challenge the materials and patterns that they
sublimate so quickly and effectively. Translators need to be able to shuttle back and
forth between rapid subliminal translating and slow, painstaking critical analysis —
which means not only that they should be trained to do both, but that their training
should embody the shuttle movement between the two, subliminal-becoming-
analytical, analytical-becoming-subliminal. Translators need to be able not only to
perform both subliminal speed-translating and conscious analytical problem-solving,
but also to shift from one to the other when the situation requires it (and also to
recognize when the situation does require it).
Hence the rather strange look of some of the chapters, and especially the
exercises at the end of the chapters. Teachers and students accustomed to
traditional analytical pedagogies will probably shy away at first from critical
perspectives and hands-on exercises designed to develop subliminal skills. And this
critical caution is a good thing: it is part of the shuttle movement from subliminal to
conscious processing. The topics for discussion that precede the exercises at the
end of every chapter are in fact designed to foster just this sort of critical skepticism
about the claims made in the chapter. Students should be given a chance both to
experience the power of subliminal learning and translating and to question the
nature and impact of what they are experiencing. Subliminal functioning without
critical self-awareness quickly becomes mind-numbing mechanical routine;
analytical critiques without rich playful experience quickly become inert
scholasticism.
The primary course for which this textbook is intended is the introduction to the
theory and practice of translation. Such introductory courses are designed to give
undergraduate (and, in some cases, graduate) students an overall view of what
translators do and how translation is studied. To these ends the book is full of
practical details regarding the professional activities of translators.
In addition, however, the exercises are designed not only to teach about
translation but to help students translate better as well; and the book might also be
used as supplementary material in practical translation seminars. Since the book is
not written for a specific language combination, the teacher will have to do some
work to adapt the exercises to the specific language combination in which the
students are working; while suggestions are given on how this might be done, it
would be impossible to anticipate the specific needs of individual students in
countries around the world. If this requires more active and creative input from

3
teachers, it also allows teachers more latitude to adapt the book's exercises to their
students' needs.
Since most translators traditionally (myself included) were not trained for the
job, and many still undergo no formal training even today, I have also set up the
book for self-study. Readers not currently enrolled in, or employed to teach in,
translator training programs can benefit from the book by reading the chapters and
doing the exercises that do not require group work. Many of the exercises designed
for group work can easily be adapted for individuals. The main thing is doing the
exercises and not just thinking about them. Thought experiments work only when
they are truly experiments and not just reflection upon what this or that experiment
might be like.

4
 Chapter I
Translator

Thesis: While translators must meet the needs of translation users in order to make
a living, it is also important for them to integrate those needs into a translator-
oriented perspective on the work, seeing the reliability that users demand in the
larger context of professional pride (including also involvement in the profession and
ethics); seeing the timeliness users want in terms of enhanced income, requiring
speed but also connected to project management and raising the status of the
profession; and insisting on the importance of actually enjoying the work.

1. Who are translators?

What does it take to be a translator or interpreter? What kind of person would
even want to, let alone be able to, sit at a computer or in court day after day
turning words and phrases in one language into words and phrases in another?
Isn't this an awfully tedious and unrewarding profession?
It can be. For many people it is. Some people who love it initially get tired
of it, burn out on it, and move on to other endeavors. Others can only do it on
the side, a few hours a day or a week or even a month: they are writers or
teachers or editors by day, but for an hour every evening, or for an afternoon
one or two Saturdays a month, they translate, sometimes for money, sometimes
for fun, mostly (one hopes) for both. If a really big job comes along and the
timing and money are right, they will spend a whole week translating, eight to ten
hours a day; but at the end of that week they feel completely drained and are
ready to go back to their regular work.
Other people, possibly even the majority (though to my knowledge there
are no statistics on this), translate full time — and don't burn out. How do they do
it? What skills do they possess that makes it possible for them to "become"
doctors, lawyers, engineers, poets, business executives, even if only briefly and
on the computer screen? Are they talented actors who feel comfortable shifting
from role to role? How do they know so much about specialized vocabularies?
Are they walking dictionaries and encyclopedias? Are they whizzes at Trivial
Pursuit?
These are the questions we'll be exploring throughout the book; but briefly, yes,
translators and (especially) interpreters do all have something of the actor in

5
them, the mimic, the impersonator, and they do develop remarkable recall skills
that will enable them to remember a word (often in a foreign language) that they
have heard only once. Translators and interpreters are voracious and
omnivorous readers, people who are typically in the middle of four books at
once, in several languages, fiction and nonfiction, technical and humanistic
subjects, anything and everything. They are hungry for real-world experience as
well, through travel, living abroad for extended periods, learning foreign
languages and cultures, and above all paying attention to how people use
language all around them: the plumber, the kids' teachers, the convenience
store clerk, the doctor, the bartender, friends and colleagues from this or that
region or social class, and so on. Translation is often called a profession of
second choice: many translators were first professionals in other fields,
sometimes several other fields in succession, and only turned to translation
when they lost or quit those jobs or moved to a country where they were unable
to practice them; as translators they often mediate between former colleagues in
two or more different language communities. Any gathering of translators is
certain to be a diverse group, not only because well over half of the people there
will be from different countries, and almost all will have lived abroad, and all will
shift effortlessly in conversation from language to language, but because by
necessity translators and interpreters carry a wealth of different "selves" or
"personalities" around inside them, ready to be reconstructed on the computer
screen whenever a new text arrives, or out into the airwaves whenever a new
speaker steps up to the podium. A crowd of translators always seems much
bigger than the actual bodies present.

My father worked for the international area of a major Brazilian

bank. As a consequence, I lived in 8 countries and 10 cities
between the ages of 1 and 19. My parents learned the
languages of the places we lived in "on location". My father
never wanted us (my 3 brothers and I) to study in American or
French schools (which can be found anywhere), but instead
forced us to learn and study in the language of the place. My
parents encouraged travel and language studies, and since I
was 14, I traveled alone throughout Europe. I learned the 3Rs in
Spanish, did high school in Italian and Portuguese. In

6
 Luxembourg, I studied at the European School in three
languages at the same time (French, English and Italian) and
spoke Portuguese at home. Italian used to be choice for
girlfriends:-)
The outcome: I speak Portuguese, English, Spanish,
Italian, and French and translate from one into the other.
I have always worked with the set of languages I learned in
my youth. I have started learning Russian, but I didn't like my
teacher's accent. For the future, I plan to study Chinese (I have
a brother who lives in Taiwan and a nephew who speaks it
fluently) .
Renato Beninatto

But then there are non-translators who share many of these same
characteristics: diplomats, language teachers, world travelers . . . What special
skills make a well traveled, well-read language lover a translator?
Not surprisingly, perhaps, the primary characteristics of a good translator
are similar to the expectations translation users have for the ideal translation: a
good translator is reliable and fast, and will work for the going rate. From an
internal point of view, however, the expectations for translation are rather
different than they look from the outside. For the translator, reliability is important
mainly as a source of professional pride, which also includes elements that are
of little or no significance to translation users; speed is important mainly as a
source of increased income, which can be enhanced through other channels as
well; and it is extremely important, perhaps even most important of all, that the
translator enjoy the work, a factor that is of little significance to outsiders. Let's
consider these three "internal" requirements in order: professional pride, income,
and enjoyment.

2. Professional pride
From the user's point of view, it is essential to be able to rely on translation —
not only on the text, but on the translator as well and generally on the entire
translation process. Because this is important to the people who pay the bills, it
will be important to the translator as well; the pragmatic considerations of

7
 keeping your job (for in-house people) or continuing to get offered jobs (for
freelancers) will mandate a willingness to satisfy an employer's or client's needs.
But for the translator or interpreter a higher consideration than money or
continued employability is professional pride, professional integrity, professional
self-esteem. We all want to feel that the job we are doing is important, that we
do it well, and that the people we do it for appreciate our work. Most people, in
fact, would rather take professional pride in a job that pays less than get rich
doing things they don't believe in. Despite the high value placed on making a lot
of money (and certainly it would be nice!), a high salary gives little pleasure
without pride in the work.
The areas in and through which translators typically take professional
pride are reliability, involvement in the profession, and ethics.

3. Reliability
Reliability in translation is largely a matter of meeting the user's needs:
translating the texts the user needs translated, in the way the user wants them
translated, by the user's deadline. The demands placed on the translator by the
attempt to be reliable from the user's point of view are sometimes impossible;
sometimes disruptive to the translator's private life; sometimes morally
repugnant; often physically and mentally exhausting. If the demands are at all
possible, however, in many or even most cases the translator's desire to take
professional pride in reliability will override these other considerations, and s/he
will stay up all night doing a rush job, cancel a pleasant evening outing with a
friend, or translate a text reliably that s/he finds morally or politically loathsome.
Professional pride in reliability is the main reason we will spend hours
hunting down a single term. What is our pay for that time? Virtually nothing. But
it feels enormously important to get it right: to find exactly the right term, the right
spelling, the right phrasing, the right register. Not just because the client expects
it; also because if you didn't do it right, your professional pride and job
satisfaction would be diminished.

4. Involvement in the profession

It is a matter of little or no concern to translation users, but of great importance
to translators, what translator associations or unions we belong to, what
translator conferences we go to, what courses we take in the field, how we

8
 network with other translators in our region and language pair(s). These
"involvements" sometimes help translators translate better, which is important for
users and thus for the pride we take in reliability. More crucially, however, they
help us feel better about being translators; they enhance our professional self-
esteem, which will often sustain us emotionally through boring and repetitive and
low-paid jobs. Reading about translation, talking about translation with other
translators, discussing problems and solutions related to linguistic transfer, user
demands, nonpayment, and the like, taking classes on translation, attending
translator conferences, keeping up with technological developments in the field,
buying and learning to use new software and hardware — all this gives us the
strong sense that we are not isolated underpaid flunkies but professionals
surrounded by other professionals who share our concerns. Involvement in the
translation profession may even give us the intellectual tools and professional
courage to stand up to unreasonable demands, to educate clients and
employers rather than submit meekly and seethe inwardly. Involvement in the
profession helps us realize that translation users need us as much as we need
them: they have the money we need; we have the skills they need. And we will
sell those skills to them, not abjectly, submissively, wholly on their terms, but
from a position of professional confidence and strength.

5. Ethics
The professional ethics of translation have traditionally been defined very
narrowly: it is unethical for the translator to distort the meaning of the source
text. As we have seen, this conception of translator ethics is far too narrow even
from the user's point of view: there are many cases when the translator is
explicitly asked to "distort" the meaning of the source text in specific ways, as
when adapting a text for television, a children's book, or an advertising
campaign.
From the translator's internal point of view, the ethics of translation are
more complicated still. What is the translator to do, for example, when asked to
translate a text that s/he finds offensive? Or, to put that differently, how does the
translator proceed when professional ethics (loyalty to the person paying for the
translation) clash with personal ethics (one's own political and moral beliefs)?
What does the feminist translator do when asked to translate a blatantly sexist
text? What does the liberal translator do when asked to translate a neo-Nazi

9
text? What does the environmentalist translator do when asked to translate an
advertising campaign for an environmentally irresponsible chemical company?
As long as thinking about translation has been entirely dominated by an
external (nontranslator) point of view, these have been nonquestions —
questions that have not been asked, indeed that have been unaskable. The
translator translates whatever texts s/he is asked to translate, and does so in a
way that satisfies the translation user's needs. The translator has no personal
point of view that has any relevance at all to the act of translation.
From an internal point of view, however, these questions must be asked.
Translators are human beings, with opinions, attitudes, beliefs, and feelings.
Translators who are regularly required to translate texts that they find abhorrent
may be able to suppress their revulsion for a few weeks, or months, possibly
even years; but they will not be able to continue suppressing those negative
feelings forever. Translators, like all professionals, want to take pride in what
they do; if a serious clash between their personal ethics and an externally
defined professional ethics makes it difficult or impossible to feel that pride, they
will eventually be forced to make dramatic decisions about where and under
what conditions they want to work.
And so increasingly translators are beginning to explore new avenues by
which to reconcile their ethics as human beings with their work as translators.
The Quebecoise feminist translator Susanne Lotbiniere-Harwood (1991), for
example, tells us that she no longer translates works by men: the pressure is too
great to adopt a male voice, and she refuses to be coopted. In her literary
translations of works by women she works very hard to help them create a
woman-centered language in the target culture as well. In The Subversive
Scribe Suzanne Jill Levine (1992) tells us that in her translations of flagrantly
sexist Latin American male authors, she works — often with the approval and
even collaboration of the authors themselves — to subvert their sexism.
This broader "internal" definition of translator ethics is highly controversial. For
many translators it is unthinkable to do anything that might harm the interests of
the person or group that is paying for the translation (the translation
"commissioner" or "initiator"). For other translators, the thought of being
rendered utterly powerless to make ethical decisions based on personal
commitments or belief structures is equally abhorrent; it feels to some like the
Nurnberg "ethics" of the SS, the claim that "we were just obeying orders." When

10
the translator's private ethics clash substantially with the interests of the
commissioner, to what extent can the translator afford to live by those ethics and
still go on earning a living? And on the other hand, to what extent can the
translator afford to compromise with those ethics and still go on taking
professional pride in his or her work?

A British translator living in Brazil who is very active in local and

international environmentalist groups is called by an agency with
an ongoing job, translating into English everything published in
Brazil on smoking. Every week a packet of photocopies arrives,
almost all of it based on scientific research in Brazil and
elsewhere on the harmful effects of smoking. As a fervent
nonsmoker and opponent of the tobacco industry, she is pleased
to be translating these texts. The texts are also relatively easy,
many of them are slight variations on a single press release, and
the money is good.
Gradually, however, ethical doubts begin to gnaw at her.
Who in the English-speaking world is so interested in what
Brazilians write about smoking, and so rich, as to pay her all this
money to have it all in English? And surely this person or group
isn't just interested in Brazil; surely she is one of hundreds of
translators around the world, one in each country, hired by a
local agency to translate everything written on smoking in their
countries as well. Who could the ultimate user be but one of the
large tobacco companies in the United States or England? She
starts paying closer attention, and by reading between the lines
is finally able to determine that the commission comes from the
biggest tobacco company in the world, one responsible for the
destruction of thousands of acres of the Amazon rain forest for
the drying of tobacco leaves, a neocolonialist enterprise that has
disrupted not only the ecosystem of the rain forest but the
economy of the Amazonian Indians. Gradually her ethical doubts
turn into distaste for her work: she is essentially helping the
largest tobacco company in the world spy on the opposition.

11
 One week, then, a sixty-page booklet comes to her, written
by a Brazilian antitobacco activist group. It is well researched
and wonderfully written; it is a joy to translate. It ends on a plea
for support, detailing several ways in which the tobacco industry
has undermined its work. Suddenly she realizes what she has to
do: she has to give her translation of this booklet, paid for by the
tobacco industry, to this group that is fighting this rather lucrative
source of her income. Not only would that help them
disseminate their research to the English-speaking world; sales
of the booklet would provide them with a much-needed source of
funding.
So she calls the group, and sets up a meeting; worried
about the legality of her action, she also asks their lawyer to
determine what if any legal risks she and they might be taking,
and be present at the meeting. When at the meeting she is
reassured that it is perfectly legal for her to give them the
translation, she hands over the diskette and leaves.
No legal action is ever taken against her, but she never
gets another packet in the mail from the agency; that source of
income dries up entirely, and instantly. It seems likely that the
tobacco company has a spy in the antitobacco group, because
she is cut off immediately, the same week, perhaps even the
same day- not, for instance, months later when the booklet is
published in English.

6. Income
Professionals do their work because they enjoy it, because they take pride in it
and also, of course, to earn a living. Professional translators translate for money.
And most professional translators (like most professionals of any field) feel that
they don’t make enough money, and would like to make more. There are at least
three ways to do this, two of them short-term strategies, the third long-term:
translate faster (especially but not exclusively if you are a freelancer); create
your own agency and farm translation jobs out to other freelancers (take a cut
for project management); and (the long-term strategy) work to educate clients

12
 and the general public about the importance of translation, so that money
managers will be more willing to pay premium fees for translation.

7. Speed
Speed and income are not directly related for all translators. They are for
freelancers. The situation is somewhat more complex than this, but basically the
faster a freelancer translates, the more money s/he makes. (Obviously, this
requires a large volume of incoming jobs; if, having done a job quickly, you have
no other work to do, translating faster will not increase your income.)
For in-house translators the links between speed and money are
considerably less obvious. Most in-house translators are expected to translate
fast, so that employability, and thus income, is complexly related to translation
speed. Translation speed is enforced in a variety of unofficial ways, mostly
though phone calls and visits from engineers, editors, bosses, and other irate
people who want their job done instantly and can't understand why you haven't
done it yet. Some in-house translators, however, do translations for other
companies in a larger concern, and submit records of billable hours to their
company's bookkeeping department; in these cases monthly targets may be set
(200 billable hours per month, invoices worth three times your monthly income,
etc.) and translators who exceed those targets may be given bonuses. Some
translation agencies also set such targets for their in-house people.
A translator's translating speed is controlled by a number of factors:
1 typing speed
2 the level of text difficulty
3 familiarity with this sort of text
4 translation memory software
5 personal preferences or style
6 job stress, general mental state
(1—3) should be obvious: the faster one types, the faster one will (potentially) be
able to translate; the harder and less familiar the text, the slower it will be to
translate. I will return to (4) in the next section. (6) is also relatively
straightforward: if you work under great pressure, with minimum reward or
praise, your general state of mind may begin to erode your motivation, which
may in turn slow you down.

13
 (5) is perhaps less obvious. Who would "prefer" to translate slowly? Don't
all translators want to translate as rapidly as possible? After all, isn't that what
our clients want?
The first thing to remember is that not everyone translates for clients.
There is no financial motivation for rapid translation when one translates for fun.
The second is that not all clients need a translation next week. The acquisitions
editor at a university press who has commissioned a literary or scholarly
translation may want it done quickly, for example, but "quickly" may mean in six
months rather than a year, or one year rather than two.
And the third thing to remember is that not everyone is willing or able to
force personal preferences into conformity with market demands. Some people
just do prefer to translate slowly, taking their time, savoring each word and
phrase, working on a single paragraph for an hour, perfecting each sentence
before moving on to the next. Such people will probably never make a living as
freelancers; but not all translators are freelancers, and not all translators need to
make a living at it. People with day jobs, high-earning spouses, or family money
can afford to translate just as slowly as they please. Many literary translators are
academics who teach and do research for a salary and translate in their free
time, often for little or no money, out of sheer love for the original text; in such
situations rapid-fire translation may even feel vaguely sacrilegious.
There can be no doubt, however, that in most areas of professional
translation, speed is a major virtue. I once heard a freelancer tell a gathering of
student translators, "If you're fast, go freelance; if you're slow, get an in-house
job." But translation divisions in large corporations are not havens for slow
translators either. The instruction would be more realistic like this: "If you're fast,
get an in-house job; if you're really fast, so your fingers are a blur on the
keyboard, go freelance. If you're slow, get a day job and translate in the
evenings."
Above all, work to increase your speed. How? The simplest step is to
improve your typing skills. If you're not using all ten fingers, teach yourself to, or
take a typing class at a community college or other adult education institute. If
you're using all ten fingers but looking at the keyboard rather than the screen
while you type, train yourself to type without looking at the keys. Take time out
from translating to practice typing faster.

14
 The other factors governing translating speed are harder to change. The
speed with which you process difficult vocabulary and syntactic structures
depends partly on practice and experience. The more you translate, the more
well-trodden synaptic pathways are laid in your brain from the source to the
target language, so that the translating of certain source-language structures
begins to work like a macro on the computer: zip, the target-language equivalent
practically leaps through your fingers to the screen. Partly also it depends on
subliminal reconstruction skills that we will be exploring in the rest of the book.
The hardest thing to change is a personal preference for slow translation.
Translating faster than feels comfortable increases stress, decreases enjoyment
(for which see below), and speeds up translator burnout. It is therefore more
beneficial to let translating speeds increase slowly, and as naturally as possible,
growing out of practice and experience rather than a determination to translate
as fast as possible right now.
In addition, with translating speed as with other things, variety is the
spice of life. Even the fastest translators cannot comfortably translate at top
speed all day, all week, all month, year-round. In this sense it is fortunate, in
fact, that research, networking, and editing slow the translator down; for most
translators a "broken" or varied rhythm is preferable to the high stress of
marathon top-speed translating. You translate at top speed for an hour or two,
and the phone rings; it is an agency offering you a job. You go back to your
translation while they fax it to you, then stop again to look the new job over and
call back to say yes or no. Another hour or two of high-speed translating and a
first draft of the morning job is done; but there are eight or ten words that you
didn't find in your dictionaries, so you get on the phone or the fax or e-mail,
trying to find someone who knows. Phone calls get immediate answers; faxes
and e-mail messages take time. While you're waiting, you pick up the new
translation job, start glancing through it, and before you know it (some sort of
automatism clicks in) you're translating it, top speed. An hour later the fax
machine rings; it's a fax from a friend overseas who has found some of your
words. You stop translating to look through the fax. You're unsure about one of
the words, so you get back on e-mail and send out a message over a listserver,
asking other subscribers whether this seems right to them; back in your home
computer, you jump over to the morning translation and make the other
changes. You notice you're hungry, so you walk to the kitchen and make a quick

15
 lunch, which you eat while looking over the fax one more time. Then back to the
afternoon translation, top speed. If the fax machine hasn't rung in an hour or two,
you find a good stopping place and check your e-mail; nothing for you, but
there's a debate going on about a group of words you know something about, so
you type out a message and send it. Then you edit the morning translation for a
while, a boring job that has to be done some time; and back to the afternoon
translation.
And all this keeps you from burning out on your own translating speed.
Interruptions may cut into your earnings; but they may also prolong your
professional life (and your sanity).

8. Raising the status of the profession

This long-range goal is equally difficult to deal with in a textbook of this sort, but
it should not be forgotten in discussions of enhancing the translator's income.
Some business consultants become millionaires by providing corporate services
that are not substantially different from the services provided by translators.
Other business consultants are paid virtually nothing. The difference lies in the
general perception of the relative value of the services offered. The higher the
value placed on the service, the more money a company will be willing to budget
for it. Many small companies (and even some large ones) value translation so
little that they are not willing to pay anything for it, and do it themselves; others
grudgingly admit that they need outside help, but are unwilling to pay the going
rate, so they hire anyone they can find who is willing to do the work for almost
nothing. One of the desired outcomes of the work done by translator
associations and unions, translator training programs, and translation scholars to
raise the general awareness of translation and its importance to society is, in
fact, to raise translator income.

9. Enjoyment
One would think that burnout rates would be high among translators. The job is
not only underpaid and undervalued by society; it involves long hours spent
alone with uninspiring texts working under the stress of short deadlines. One
would think, in fact, that most translators would burn out on the job after about
three weeks.

16
 And maybe some do. That most don't, that one meets freelance
translators who are still content in their jobs after thirty years, says something
about the operation of the greatest motivator of all: they enjoy their work. They
must — for what else would sustain them? Not the fame and fortune; not the
immortal brilliance of the texts they translate. It must be that somehow they find
a sustaining pleasure in the work itself.
In what, precisely? And why? Is it a matter of personal style: some
people just happen to love translating, others don't? Or are there ways to teach
oneself to find enhanced enjoyment in translation?
Not all translators enjoy every aspect of the work; fortunately, the field is
diverse enough to allow individuals to minimize their displeasure. Some
translators dislike dealing with clients, and so tend to gravitate toward work with
agencies, which are staffed by other translators who understand the difficulties
translators face. Some translators go stir-crazy all alone at home, and long for
adult company; they tend to get in-house jobs, in translation divisions of large
corporations or translation agencies or elsewhere, so that they are surrounded
by other people, who help relieve the tedium with social interaction. Some
translators get tired of translating all day; they take breaks to write poetry, or
attend a class at the local college, or go for a swim, or find other sources of
income to pursue every third hour of the day, or every other day of the week.
Some translators get tired of the repetitiveness of their jobs, translating the same
kind of text day in, day out; they develop other areas of specialization, actively
seek out different kinds of texts, perhaps try their hand at translating poetry or
drama.
Still, no matter how one diversifies one's professional life, translating (like
most jobs) involves a good deal of repetitive drudgery that will simply never go
away. And the bottom line to that is: if you can't learn to enjoy even the
drudgery, you won't last long in the profession. There is both drudgery and
pleasure to be found in reliability, in painstaking research into the right word, in
brain-wracking attempts to recall a word that you know you've heard, in working
on a translation until it feels just right. There is both drudgery and pleasure to be
found in speed, in translating as fast as you can go, so that the keyboard hums.
There is both drudgery and pleasure to be found in taking it slowly, staring
dreamily at (and through) the source text, letting your mind roam, rolling target-
language words and phrases around on your tongue. There are ways of making

17
a mind-numbingly boring text come alive in your imagination, of turning technical
documentation into epic poems, weather reports into songs.
In fact in some sense it is not too much to say that the translator's most
important skill is the ability to learn to enjoy everything about the job. This is not
the translator's most important skill from the user's point of view, certainly; the
user wants a reliable text rapidly and cheaply, and if a translator provides it while
hating every minute of the work, so be it. If as a result of hating the work the
translator burns out, so be that too. There are plenty of translators in the world; if
one burns out and quits the profession, ten others will be clamoring for the
privilege to take his or her place.
But it is the most important skill for the translators themselves. Yes, the
ability to produce reliable texts is essential; yes, speed is important. But a fast
and reliable translator who hates the work, or who is bored with it, feels it is a
waste of time, will not last long in the profession - and what good are speed and
reliability to the ex-translator? "Boy, I used to be fast." Pleasure in the work will
motivate a mediocre translator to enhance her or his reliability and speed;
boredom or distaste in the work will make even a highly competent translator
sloppy and unreliable.
And in some sense this textbook is an attempt to teach translators to
enjoy their work more — to drill not specific translation or vocabulary skills but
what we might call "pretranslation" skills, attitudinal skills that (should) precede
and undergird every "verbal" or "linguistic" approach to a text: intrinsic
motivation, openness, receptivity, a desire to constantly be growing and
changing and learning new things, a commitment to the profession, and a delight
in words, images, intellectual challenges, and people.
In fact the fundamental assumptions underlying the book's approach to
translation might be summed up in the following list of axioms:
1 Translation is more about people than about words.
2 Translation is more about the jobs people do and the way they see
their world
than it is about registers or sign systems.
3 Translation is more about the creative imagination than it is about rule-
governed text analysis.
4 The translator is more like an actor or a musician (a performer) than
like a tape recorder.

18
 5 The translator, even of highly technical texts, is more like a poet or a
novelist than like a machine translation system.

Which is not to say that translation is not about words, or phrases, or

registers, or sign systems? Clearly those things are important in translation. It is
to say rather that it is more productive for the translator to think of such
abstractions in larger human contexts, as a part of what people do and say.
Nor is it to say that human translation is utterly unlike the operation of a
tape recorder or machine translation system. Those analogies can be usefully
drawn. It is merely to say that machine analogies may be counterproductive for
the translator in her or his work, which to be enjoyable must be not mechanical
but richly human. Machine analogies fuel formal, systematic thought; they do not
succor the translator, alone in a room with a computer and a text, as do more
vibrant and imaginative analogies from the world of artistic performance or other
humanistic endeavors.
Is this, then, a book of panaceas, a book of pretty lies for translators to
use in the rather pathetic pretense that their work is really more interesting than
it seems?
No. It is a book about how translators actually view their work; how
translating actually feels to successful professionals in the field.
Besides, it is not that thinking about translation in more human terms, more
artistic and imaginative terms, simply makes the work seem more interesting.
Such is the power of the human imagination that it actually makes it become
more interesting. Imagine yourself bored and you quickly become bored.
Imagine yourself a machine with no feelings, a computer processing inert words,
and you quickly begin to feel dead, inert, lifeless. Imagine yourself in a movie or
a play (or an actual use situation) with other users of the machine whose
technical documentation you're translating, all of you using the machine, walking
around it, picking it up, pushing buttons and flipping levers, and you begin to feel
more alive.

The structure of How. The autotelic [self-rewarding] experience

is described in very similar terms regardless of its context . . .
Artists, athletes, composers, dancers, scientists, and people

19
from all walks of life, when they describe how it feels when they
are doing something that is worth doing for its own sake, use
terms that are interchangeable in the minutest details. This
unanimity suggests that order in consciousness produces a very
specific experiential state, so desirable that one wishes to
replicate it as often as possible. To this state we have given the
name of "flow," using a term that many respondents used in their
interviews to explain what the optimal experience felt like.
Challenges and skills. The universal precondition for flow is
that a person should perceive that there is something for him or
her to do, and that he or she is capable of doing it. In other
words, optimal experience requires a balance between the
challenges perceived in a given situation and the skills a person
brings to it. The "challenge" includes any opportunity for action
that humans are able to respond to: the vastness of the sea, the
possibility of rhyming words, concluding a business deal, or
winning the friendship of another person are all classic
challenges that set many flow experiences in motion. But any
possibility for action to which a skill corresponds can produce an
autotelic experience.
It is this feature that makes flow such a dynamic force in
evolution. For every activity might engender it, but at the same
time no activity can sustain it for long unless both the challenges
and the skills become more complex. .. For example, a tennis
player who enjoys the game will want to reproduce the state of
enjoyment by playing as much as possible. But the more such
individuals play, the more their
skills improve. Now if they continue to play against opponents of
the same level as before, they will be bored. This always
happens when skills surpass challenges.
To return in flow and replicate the enjoyment they desire, they
will have to find stronger opposition.
To remain in flow, one must increase the complexity of the
activity by developing new skills and taking on new challenges.
This holds just as true for enjoying business, for playing the

20
 piano, or for enjoying one's marriage, as for the game of tennis.
Heraclitus's dictum about not being able to step in the same
stream twice holds especially true for flow. This inner dynamic of
the optimal experience is what drives the self to higher and
higher levels of complexity. It is because of this spiraling
compexity that people describe flow as a process of "discovering
something new," whether they are shepherds telling how they
enjoy caring for their flocks, mothers telling how they enjoy
playing with their children, or artists, describing the enjoyment of
painting. Flow forces people to stretch themselves, to always
take on another challenge, to improve on their abilities. {Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi, "The Flow Experience and
its Significance for Human Psychology" (1995: 29-30)

Exercises
Before coming to the discussion of Theory of translation do the following
exercises!

1. Set up a translating speed test. Translate first 10 words in five minutes; then
20 words in five minutes; then 30, 40, 50, and so on. Stick with the five-
minute period each time, but add 10 more words. Try to pace yourself as you
proceed through each text segment: when you do 10 words in five minutes,
translate two words the first minute, two more the second, etc. When you are
trying to do 100 words in five minutes, try to translate 20 words each minute.
Pay attention to your "comfort zone" as the speed increases. How does it
feel to translate slowly? Medium-speed? Fast? When the pace gets too fast
for your comfort, stop. Discuss or reflect on what this test tells you about
your attitudes toward translation speed.

2. Now shake your head and shoulders and relax; put all thought of deadlines
and critiques out of your head. Give yourself ten minutes to do nothing; then
look through the source text with an eye to doing the silliest translation you
can imagine. Start doing the silly translation in your head; imagine a group of
friends laughing together over the translation. Work with another person to
come up with the funniest bad translation of the text, and laugh together

21
while you work. Now imagine yourself doing the "straight" or serious
translation — and compare your feelings about the task now with your
feelings under stress.

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 Chapter 2
Theory of Translation
1. Definition of Translation
Translation is basically a very complex phenomenon, and insight about this
interlingual activity is derived from several different disciplines such as linguistic,
sociolinguistic, cultural anthropology, communication theory and so on.
Therefore, a good translator should try to enrich his or her knowledge and
practice in translating in order to be able to produce a good translation.
We will discuss some aspects of translation in this book. Before discussing what
actually translation is, it is necessary for us to know some definitions according
to some language experts. Following are some of so many definitions:

a. Translation is here conceived primarily as a process of intercultural

communication, whose end product is a text which is capable of functioning
appropriately in specific situations and contexts of use. In this conception,
neither source-and-target text comparison, nor linguistic, has any significant
role to play, and translation is situated within the wider context of cooperative
interaction between professional (expert) and client. This theory was
developed by Justa Holz-Manttari (1984)

What we should underline here is that, translation is “a process of

intercultural communication.” So, in short, we can say that translation goal is
to communicate a textual message between one culture and another
because he says that the end product is “a text which is capable of
functioning appropriately in specific situations and contexts of use.” In this
definition it is expressed that translation is not only a “word for word”
replacement but also “sense for sense” (situation and context transfer.)
In this situation we, as translators, should make a simple research on
source and target language situation and context before translating a
message. We often find a short and simple message and no problem for us
to translate to the target language textually but we miss the situation and
context. Let’s take very simple example; years ago an Indonesia comedian
always said “Untung ada saya” in a special intonation and expression. One
thing we should pay a special attention here is Indonesian who are listening

23
 or watching the comedian expressing this will directly laugh because there
was a great sense of humor in the phrase.
Different situation will happen if someone in England says “Luckily I
am here.” We miss the situation and context in this phrase although it is
actually a translation result of “Untung ada saya” because in English “Luckily
I am here” has no sense of humor at all. Or another example, Gus Dur,
former President of Indonesia says “Gitu aja kok repot.” Compare this phrase
with “Don’t be bothered,” of course we will get a different “taste” of language
although the message is exactly similar.
The above expert also states that “In this conception, neither source-
and-target text comparison, nor linguistic, has any significant role to play.”
This definition gives us a message that the most important thing in
translation is “message” not linguistic or comparison between source
language and target language. Translator should take proper word to convey
the message, so, the readers of target language have the same message as
source language readers. For example, if we textually translate “as white as
snow” into Bahasa Indonesia, of course, we will get “seputih salju,” but
before translating this phrase we should first think whether Indonesian really
understand what is “snow” or “salju” in Bahasa Indonesia.
If translator sure that, Indonesian readers truly understand that snow
is white, it doesn’t matter to take “salju” but if not, the translator should take
other word representing white thing like “kapas,” so the result is “seputih
kapas, not seputih salju.”

b. Translation is the replacement of textual material in one language by

equivalent textual material in another language. Catford (1980)

According to Catford, there are two lexical items to pay more attention,
namely “textual material” and “equivalent.” Textual material refers to the fact
that not all source language texts are translated or replaced by the target
language equivalents. The term “equivalent” is clearly a key term and the
translator should find the “equivalent” between the source language and the
target language. So, the central problem of translation practice is to find
target language equivalents. Meaning is not mentioned here but “equivalent
textual material” is stated.

24
c. Translation is the general term referring to the transfer of thoughts and ideas
from one language (source) to another (target), whether the language are
written or oral form; whether the languages have established
autobiographies or do not have such standardization or whether one or both
languages is based on sign, as with languages of the deaf. Brislin (1976).

Here it seem that Brislin give a broad definition to the term “translation.”
According to him, translation means transferring thought and ideas from one
language to another language and the languages, can be spoken form which
is called interpretation and the written form which is usually called
translation. In this definition, however, the process of translation and the
criteria of a good translation are not clearly stated.

d. Translation is basically a change of form. When we speak of the form of a

language, we are referring to the actual words, phrases, clauses, sentences,
paragraphs, etc., which a re spoken or written …In translation, the form of
source language is replaced by the form of the receptor (target) language.
Larson (1984).

This definition gives emphases to the change of form. In translating,

therefore, the translator should try to find equivalent of form between the
form of source language and that of the target language. In line with Brislin,
Larson also states that the languages transferred can be spoken and written
forms. It should be noted, however, that Larson in the definition states that
translation should be a change of form, while in his book; he discusses a
translation which is based on meaning.

e. Translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message

and/or statement in another language by the same message and or
statement in another language. Newmark (1981).

Newmark, just like Brislin and Larson, also mentions that translation can
cover written and spoken forms. He does not use the term “equivalent” but
he states “the same message in another language message”. For him, the

25
 most important thing in translation is the message. It is the message that
should be equivalent, not the form. See, as white as snow, which is
transferred into seputih kapas, in the first definition.
Besides, Newmark states that translation is a craft, we all know that a
craft needs ability and creativity.

f. Translation consists of reproducing in the receptor language the closest

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

The definition proposed by Nida and Taber contains some elements that
should be taken into account by a translator performing his/her task:
reproducing the message, equivalence, natural equivalent, closest
equivalent, priority on meaning and also style.
According to the definition, the translator should try to reproduce the
message contained in the source language into the one in the target
language. In this matter, what the translation should do in translating is to
create the equivalent message, not the form in the target language. Or, it can
be stated that an emphasis should be put on the reproduction of the
message rather than the conservation of the form or grammatical structures.
To get such an equivalent message, many grammatical and lexical
adjustments should be made.
A good translation, therefore, does not sound like translation; it flows
naturally as if it is originally written in the target language. The grammar and
vocabulary used in the translation are not strange and awkward. So
“translationese” (formal fidelity) should be avoided as far as possible. In
short, a natural equivalent should be reached in order not to spoil the content
and the impact of the conveyed message.
The most important ting to be remembered by the translator is the
meaning. Meaning should be given priority because the main purpose of
translation is to convey the content of the message in the source language
into the target language. Therefore, it is highly desirable to make radical
departure from formal structure in order to get equivalence in the intended
meaning.

26
 In translation meaning should be given the highest priority, but style
also important. For example, a translator should not translate prose into
poetry, nor expository into a narrative one. Because almost impossible to
create in the target language the exact style of the source language such as
plays on words, poem in certain rhymes, rhythmic units (phrase and line of
poetry), a marginal note should be added to ease the readers understand
why the text is written like this.

2. Types of translation
There are so many definitions of translation offered by experts but they can be
categorized into two broad types, namely free and literal translation. Free
translation also called sense for sense translation. Here, the translator interprets
the source text and renders certain aspect of his or her interpretation in the
target text in addition to, or instead, surface meaning. There are some principles
for the translator to translate a text using this type of translation. These are the
principles of free translation
a. The translation should convey the ideas of the target language text, not the
words.
b. The translation is like the text written in the target language in terms of its
flexibility.
c. The translation should have its own style.
d. The translation should show the time of the writing of the text.
e. The translation may add or reduce anything existed in the source language
text.
f. A literary genre does not have to be maintained.

Here, the translator should try to transfer the ideas of target language
text into those of the source language text. It is not the form but the ideas or
content that shoud be rendered. The translation should read like the original text
in the target language, so the translator is permitted to add or reduce elements
which may distract the smoothness of the translation result. For principles 6,
however, it should be noted that the translator should not change the genre of
the writing if the idea still can be conveyed without changing the genre.
Faithful translation, also called word-for-word translation, is ideally the
segmentation of the source language text into individual words and target

27
language rendering of those word-segments one at the time. But in “real-life”
translation this ideal is often literally impossible—an inflected word in an
agglutinative source language, for example, can almost never be replaced with
single word in an isolative target language—and even when literally possible, the
result is often unreadable. Hence most so-called literal translations are in fact
compromises with the ideal; looser renditions that replace individual source
language words with individual target language words wherever possible, and
cling as closely possible to the source word order in the target language. In
detail, the principles of faithful translation are as follows:
a. The translator should use the source language words.
b. When the translation is read, it is like a translation.
c. The translation should show the style of source language text.
d. The translation should show the time of the writing of the text.
e. The translation should not add or reduce anything existing in the source
language text.
f. A literary genre should be maintained in the translation.

On the basis of the principles above, the translator in performing his/her

task should translate the texts literally and maintain the style of the text.
Therefore, when the translation is read, it is like a translation and in this case
translator should not reduce or add words from the source language text. The
time of writing also should be shown. The last, a certain genre should be
translated into the same genre, poetry, for instance, should be translated into
poetry, not a prose.
To make the explanation more understandable, following is a short
example where English is source language and Bahasa Indonesia as a target
language.

- Source language
In our notion the object of a university education is to train intellectual men
for the pursuits of an intellectual life.

- Result of faithful translation

28
 Menurut gagasan kita sasaran dari suatu pendidikan universitas adalah
untuk melatih laki-laki intelektual untuk pengejaran suatu kehidupan
intelektual.

- Result of free translation

Dalam gagasan kita, tujuan pendidikan tinggi adalah untuk melatih manusia
intelektual demi mengejar kehidupan intelektual.

3. Translation Process
Translating involves two processes in the mind of the translator. In one side
translator should focus his/her attention on the source language text and in the
same time process it into target language text. We call this as process of
translation. According to Nida and Taber (1982), there are two approaches in
translating text from source language into target language. The first approach is
based on the application of rules called “surface structure” of language. Look at
the diagram below

A------------------(X) ------------------B
Figure 1. Surface structure

In the above diagram, A refers to source language, B target language and (X)
represents the intermediate structure set up as a type of universal language
where any and all languages might be related for the sake of economical
transfer, but the approach doesn’t represent mental state experienced by the
translator.
But Nida and Taber also offer their more detail diagram process

A (Source) B Target/Receptor)

(Analysis) (Restructuring)

29
 X (Transfer) Y
Figure 2. Process of translation according to Nida and Taber 1982.

The Nida and Taber’s process is then refined by Suryawinata (1989)

because the process shown by Nida and Taber does not show the internal
process explicity. Suryawinata then proposes the process which can be shown
as follows:

Analysis and
Understanding Restructuring
Content Transfer Content
Source meaning Equivalent meaning Target
language message message language
Text in source in target text
language 2 language

1 3
Evaluation and revision

Figure 3. Process of translation developed by Suryawinata (1989:14)

The process shown by figure 2 shows that translator should transfer

three different things simultaneously namely content, meaning, and message.
Content refers to the information written in a language and message refers to
information written in the source language, meaning to something expressed in
a language and message refers to feeling, emotion, and the implication
expected by the author to be understood by the readers (Suryawinata and
Hariyanto, 2003:181).
The process of translation consists of three stages. First is analysis and
understanding. In this process, the translator reads the source language text to
understand the content of the text. In this stage, the surface structure and
message in the source language is analyzed in line with grammatical relations,
meaning of words and combination of words, texture and contextual meanings.
The second is transfer. In this process, the material is analyzed and the
meanings understood are processed in mind of the translator from source
language into target language. The last is restructuring. It means that if the
equivalent of the meanings in the source language has been obtained, the

30
 translator should look for equivalent of words, expression, and sentences in the
target language. At this stage, the translator should restructure the grammars in
line with the rules of the target language. The nearest equivalents are obtained.
This process occurs quickly but when translating complex texts or difficult
technologies, the process may happen many times, so revision and
reconsideration should be done until accurate equivalents is obtained. If the
translator had done the analysis, transfer of content, meaning and message
from source language into target language, the translation is finished, and a
translation has been produced.
About the process of translation, one proposed by Suryawinata may
lead the translator to a different process. In this process, errors might be
predicted and analyzed more systemically. The prediction and analysis,
however, might be done at the surface manifestation. Therefore, the study may
still be done on linguistic aspect. Moreover, problems in translation might arise
at the transfer stage.

Exercises
Write in separate papers, if necessary, translate the following texts. Translate into
Bahasa Indonesia as the target language. Translate them in both styles (literal and
free translation) and compare the results. You may do it in a group of two to four.

Text #1
The Loss of the ‘Titanic.’

The great ship, Titanic, sailed for New York from Southampton on April 10th, 1912.
Titanic was carrying 1316 passengers and 891 crews. Even by modern standard,
the 46.000 ton Titanic was a colossal ship. At that time, however, she was not only
the largest ship that had ever built, but regarded as unsinkable ship, because the
ship has sixteen watertight compartments. Even, if two of these compartments were
flooded, the ship still be able to float. The tragic sinking of this great liner will always
be remembered, because she sank on her first voyage with heavy lost of life.
Four days after setting out, while Titanic was sailing across the icy water of
north Atlantic, a huge iceberg was suddenly spotted by a look-out.

31
After the alarm had been given, the great ship turned sharply to avoid direct
collision. The Titanic turned just in time, narrowly missing the immense wall of ice
which rose over 100 feet out of the water beside her.
Suddenly, there were a slight trembling sound from bellow, and the captain went
down to see what had happened. The noise had been so faint that no one thought
that the ship had been damaged. Below, the captain realized to his horror that the
Titanic was sinking rapidly, five of her sixteen watertight compartments had already
been flooded! The order to abandon ship was given and hundred of people plunged
into the icy water. Because there were not enough life-boats for everybody, 1500
people were lost.

Result #1
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Result #2
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Text #2
Crazy

Children often have far more sense than their elders. This simple truth was
demonstrated rather dramatically during a civil defense exercise in a small town in
Canada. Most of the inhabitants were asked to take part in the exercise during
which they had to pretend that their city had been bombed. Air-raid warnings were
sounded and thousands of people went into special air-raid shelters. Doctors and
nurses remained above ground while police patrolled the streets in case anyone
tried to leave the shelters too soon.
The police did not have much to do because the citizens took the exercise
seriously. They stayed underground for twenty minutes and waited for the siren to
sound again. On leaving the air-raid shelters, they saw that doctors and nurses were
busy. A great many people had volunteered to act as casualties. Theatrical make-up
and artificial blood had been used to make the injuries look realistic. A lot of people
were lying ‘dead’ in the streets. The living helped to carry the dead and wounded to
special stations. A child of six was brought in by two adults. The child was
supposed to be dead. With theatrical make-up on his face, he looked as if he had
died of shock. Some people were so moved by the sight that they began to cry.
However, the child suddenly sat up and a doctor asked him to comment on his
death. The child looked around for a moment and said, “I think they’re all crazy!”

Result #1
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Result #2
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Text #3
The Double Life of Alfred Bloggs

These days, people who do manual work often receive far more money than clerks
who work in the offices. People who work in offices are frequently referred to as
“white collar workers” for the simple that they usually wear a collar and a tie to go to
work. Such in human nature, that a great many people are willing to sacrifice higher
pay for the privilege of becoming white collar workers. This can give rise to curious
situations, as it did in the case of Alfred Bloggs who work as a dustman for the
Ellesmere Corporation.

34
 When he got married Alf was too embarrassed to say anything to his wife
about his job. He simply told her that he work for the Corporation. Every morning, he
left home dressed in a fine black suit. He then changed into overalls and spent the
next eight hours as a dustman. Before returning home at night, he took a shower
and changed back into his suit. Alf did this for over two years and his fellow dustmen
kept his secret. Alf’s wife has never discovered that she married a dustman and she
never will, for Alf has just found another job. He soon be working in an office as a
junior clerk. He will only earning only half as much as he used to, but he feels that
his rise in status is well worth the loss of money. From now on, he will wear a suit all
day and others will call him ‘Mr. Bloggs’, not ‘Alf’.

Result #1
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Result #2
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 Chapter 3
Translation Method

2.1 Definition
The term method in Macquarie Dictionary (1982), method is a way of doing
something, especially in accordance with a definite plan. From the definition we
have two important things. First, method is a way of doing something, namely “a
way of doing translation” in the context of this chapter. Secondly, in accordance
with a definite plan, in this chapter refers to a plan of doing translation.

2.2 Methods of Translation

Newmark (1988) proposes two classes of methods of translation, namely 1)
source language oriented translation method and 2) target language oriented
translation method. In the first method, a translator tries to build contextual
meaning of the source language in target language, of course he/she will find
syntactical and semantic problem in doing this. In the second method, translator
tries to give the same effect not contextual meaning, like what the source
language writer expected. Following are the explanation of the translation
methods proposed by Newmark.

1. Word for word translation

In this method, source language words are usually directly replaced by target
language words. This method usually applied in translating text where more
detail interpretation is needed like translating Al-Qur’an verses.

2. Literal translation
Literal translation is a form-based translation attempting to follow the form of
source language, so the translator user source language words with literal
meaning as stated in the source language and the source language
structures. Sometimes, original structures are acceptable, or even
unacceptable at all in the target language. If translator makes some
adjustments on the structures in target language it is called “modified literal
translation, (Larson (1984:16). This kind of translation is not an ideal
translation because it still results in an unnatural translation.

37
3. Faithful translation
Faithful translation tries to make contextual meaning reproduction but the
grammatical structure remain the same as source language structure. The
translator here focuses on the purpose of the source language, so, the
translation product using this method sometimes awkward and strange for
the target language readers. For instance, Ben is too well aware that he is
naughty. If we translate into Bahasa Indonesia by using this method, so the
result should be Ben menyadari terlalu baik bahwa dia nakal. This translation
result makes the readers of target language confuse. Since, in one side the
readers find the phrase terlalu baik but in the end of the sentence there is
nakal, two adjectives which are absolutely contrary.

4. Semantic translation
Semantic translation is more flexible than faithful translation. The character
of this translation method is target language-oriented. Semantic translation
also considers the text esthetic element of source language and the
translator free to express and rebuild the structure of the sentence to convey
source language message in target language text. It is possible to make a
phrase and/or clause to translate a word and it vice versa. The word
“menggendong”, for instance, it is almost impossible to find a word which has
exactly the same meaning and expression in English, but by using this
method a translation, a translator may construct a phrase to translate this
word. Bring something on one’s back may be one of so many choices. He is
a book-worm, the other example; a translator may translate into “Dia adalah
seorang yang sangat suka membaca.” In short, functional translation (easy
to understand) is the final result of this translation.

All four methods above is a source language-oriented translation, where a

translator tends to pay more attention to the source language. Besides that, we
still have the second four methods where a translator tends to pay more
attention to the target language text than source language. Following are the
methods.
1. Adaptation
This method is the “real-free” translation. A translator may use the term of
“adaptation” in translating a text but he/she is forbidden to omit important

38
 things in the source language such as theme, character, and plot. In this
translation a translator is also possible to make cultural transfer in the target
language. It is possible for us to translate Romeo and Juliet into Bahasa
Indonesia and make some adaptation to the Indonesian culture but the
theme, character, and plot remain exactly the same as the original (source
language). Usually, this method is functioned to translate drama or poetry.

2. Free translation.
Free translation focuses on the content and omits the form of the source
language. The final result of this method may shorter or even longer than the
source language text. Mass media often use this method to compose news.
Look at this news title carefully

Source language: Hollywood Rage for Remakes (Times, May 28, 1990).
Target language: Hollywood kekurangan cerita: Lantas Rame-Rame Bikin
Film Ulang (Suara Merdeka, July 15, 1990).

Because the final result form is definitely different from the form of source
language, some experts say that this is not a translation. This method ha a
special function, so a translator should be careful before applying this
method in doing his/her task and also consider “when and what” the purpose
of his/her translation result.

3. Idiomatic translation
This is a translation method where the final result of the translation will not
sound like a translation but it is like the original writing. In this method
translator often make a meaning distortion. Some famous translation experts
are fond of this method. They said that the result of this method is “natural”
translation.

Source language: Mari minum kopi sama-sama saya; saya yang traktir.
Target language #1: I will shout you a cup of coffee.
But look at this
Target language #2: Let me buy you a cup of coffee.

39
 We have two results in the above example. The first is idiomatic and second
one is semantic translation.

4. Communicative translation
This method tries to produce the effect to the readers of the target language
as closely as possible that might be caught by the readers of the source
language. In short, communicative translation is focused on the readers of
target language. As an example is the translation the word spine in the
phrase thorn spine in old reef sediments. Biologist will transfer spine into
spina in Bahasa Indonesia, but if the reader of target language are common
people the translator should translate spine into duri.

Those are the common methods of translation. From them, we come to the
conclusion that translation method can be categorized into two general methods,
those are source language-oriented method and target language-oriented
method.

Exercises
Translate the following texts by using
a. literal method
b. faithful method
c. communicative method

1. When anyone opens a current account at a bank, he is lending the bank

money, repayment of which he may demand at any time/either in cash or by
drawing a cheque in favour of another person. Primarily/the banker-customer
relationship is that of debtor and creditor—depending on whether the
customer’s account is in credit or is overdrawn. (taken from The Consumer
Society and the Law).

Answer:
a.
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 ________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
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b.
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c.
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2. In Brain-Based Learning and Teaching, Eric Jensen (1995a) outlines four

general areas in which individual learning styles differ: context, input,
processing, and response. Let us consider each in turn, bearing in mind that
your overall learning style will not only be a combination of many of these
preferences but will vary from task to task and from learning situation to learning
situation. What follows is not a series of categorical straitjackets; it is a list of
general tendencies that flow more or less freely through every one of us. You
may even recognize yourself, in certain moods or while performing certain tasks,
in each of the categories below.

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 Answer:
a.
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b.
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c.
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 Chapter 4
Translation Procedure
3.1 Definition
Procedure is the act or manner of proceeding in any action or process. The
difference between procedure and method are in the unit of its application.
Method covers the whole text while procedure covers smaller unit such as
sentence, clause, phrase or word. Translation procedures are used as a
technical guide in translating phrase to phrase, sentence to sentence and word
to word. According to Suryawinata and Hariyanto (2003), the procedures can be
divided into two types: structural and semantic procedures.

3.1.1 Structural Procedures

The procedures which deal with structural problems may be divided into three
procedures, namely, addition, subtraction, and transposition (shift of form).
a. Addition. It is the addition of words in the target language as required by
the target language structure. Look and analyze the following list of
examples!

Source language Target language

Dia guru She is a teacher

Perjanjian inilah yang diacu It is this agreement which is referred to

Adept Sangat terampil

Amenity Sikap ramah tamah, sopan santun

Deliberate Dengan sengaja, tenang dan berhati-hati

Interchangeability Keadaan dapat saling dipertukarkan

Unimportant book Buku yang tidak penting

Ibu saya perawat My mother is a nurse

Dia perokok He is a smoker

b. Subtraction. It means the reduction of the structural elements in the target

language in order to be structurally accepted. This is the vice versa of
addition. See the list above and change the position, so we see the
following examples

43
 Source language Target language
She is a teacher Dia guru
It is this agreement which is referred to Perjanjian inilah yang diacu
Sangat terampil Adept
Sikap ramah tamah, sopan santun Amenity
Dengan sengaja, tenang dan berhati-hati Deliberate
Keadaan dapat saling dipertukarkan interchangeability
Buku yang tidak penting Unimportant book
My mother is a nu Ibu saya perawat rse
He is a smoker Dia perokok

c. Transposition (shift of form). This procedure according to Suryawinata and

Hariyanto (2003), is used to translate clauses or sentences. The translator
uses this procedure by changing the original structure of the source
language in the target language sentences to produce an equivalent effect.
The change is made by changing plural into singular, the position of
adjectives, or structure of sentences as a whole (Newmark, 1885),
suryawinata and Hariyanto, 2003:68).
According to Rochayah Machali, there are four shifts of form in
translating a text from source language to target language. Those four
shifts are
1. Automatic or obligatory shift, it is caused by the system or rule of
the language. In this case, the translator can do nothing but do it
(shifting the form. In searching for equivalent an Indonesian-English
translator or its vice versa has to make shift of form or transposition
in the three following situation
a. Plural noun in English into singular noun in Bahasa Indonesia
like
- a pair of trousers into sebuah celana
- a pair of glasses into sebuah kacamata
- a pair of scissor into sebuah gunting

b. Adjective repetition in Bahasa Indonesia to show variation of

adjective into plural noun in English

44
 Example:
Source language: Mahasiswa Universitas Kanjuruhan Malang
pintar-pintar.
Target language: The students of Kanjuruhan University are
clever.

It is impossible for the translator to translate into the student of

Kanjuruhan University are clever-clever.

c. Adjective + noun into noun + adjective

This situation, of course, unavoidable in translating English into
Bahasa Indonesia or its vice versa because of difference
pattern between English and Bahasa Indonesia. The proper
pattern in Bahasa Indonesia of course noun + adjective while in
English adjective + noun.
Example
Source language: beautiful girl
Target language: gadis cantik

Source language: batu besar

Target language: big stone
Etc.

Also when the adjective is formed of verb like in the phrase

“living thing”= makhluk hidup, or a phrase where the adjective is
more than one word like “Malang-based newspaper” = Koran
yang berbasis di Malang. But if the phrase consists of adjective
and number, the translator should start translate from closest
adjective to the noun. Look at this example:

Source language: Two splendid ancient electric trains

1 2 3 4
Target language: ‘Dua (buah) kereta api listrik kuno yang bagus
4 3 2 1
sekali’ (Rochayah Machali, 2000;65)

45
 In this case all translators should make such a shift of form, so,
fatal mistake like big box = besar kotak will never happen.

2. Shift of form caused by different grammatical structure between

Source language and target language. Translator has to make this
kind of transposition if the structure of source language doesn’t
exist in the target language structure. There are two types of this
transposition.
a. Object as the first word in a sentence like ‘Susu itu harus kita
minum’ doesn’t exist in English grammatical structure, except in
passive voice or special structure, so, here there is shift of form
into statement sentence.
Example:
Source language: File itu harus kita simpan
Target language: We have to save the file

b. The verb as the first word in a sentence like telah disahkan

penggunaannya doesn’t exist in English grammatical structure,
except in an imperative (very important) sentence.
Example:
Source language: telah disahkan penggunaannya
Target language: its usage has been approved’

3. Shift of form because of fittingness expression reason; although it is

possible to translate literally but the awkward sentence is the result.
a. Noun/noun phrase in source language becomes verb in target
language.
Example:
Source language: …to train intellectual men for the pursuits of an
intellectual life
Target language: untuk melatih para intelektual untuk mengejar
kehidupan intelektual.

46
 If the translator translates literally, the translation result will be
‘melatih para intelektual untuk pengejaran kehidupan intelektual’.
This phrase is OK in Bahasa Indonesia but it sounds strange.

b. Adjective + noun becomes noun + noun

Example: medical student become mahasiswa kedokteran.

c. Underlined clause in source language is fully stated in target

language.
Example:
Source language: the approval signed by the doctor is valid
Target language: persetujuan yang ditandatangani oleh dokter itu
valid.

d. Adjective = noun become noun + clause

Example
Lending bank into bank yang memberikan pinjaman
Thinking person into orang yang berpikir

e. What Catford says about class transposition is actually this kind of

transposition.
Example:
1. Source language: I disavow any knowledge of their plot
Target language: Saya menyangkal mengetahui apapun
tentang persekongkolan mereka

(knowledge becomes mengetahui [noun become verb])

2. Source language: The neighbors were hostile to the family

Target language: para tetangga itu memusuhi keluarga
tersebut

(hostile become memusuhi [adjective becomes verb])

3. Source language: It was an arduous climb up the mountain

47
 Target language: Sungguh sukar mendaki gunung itu
(an arduous becomes sukar [noun becomes verb])

4. Translator makes a shift of form to fill lexical gap between source

language and target language (like the usage of pun, lah, etc.) in
Bahasa Indonesia grammatical structure.
a. Textual equipment to show the focus in source language is
stated in complete grammatical construction in target language.
Source language: perjanjian inilah yang diacu.
Target language: it is this agreement which is reffered to (not
anything else).

b. This is the shift where a word becomes clause, phrase

becomes clause etc.
Example

Whale = ikan paus

Adept = sangat terampil
Arduous = sangat sulit

3.1.2 Semantic Procedures

These procedures are the translation procedures which are based on the
consideration of meaning. The procedures are as follows:
a. Borrowing.
It is the translation procedure which takes the source language form into
the target language one due to the gap in its lexicon (Fawcett, 1997:34).
Borrowing, according to Vinay and Darbelnet, is used to “create a stylist
effect” (Venuti, 2000:84) and as Fedorov say to retain the “shade of
specifity” (Fawcett, 197:71). According to Suryawinata and Hariyanto
(2003:71), borrowing covers transliteration and naturalization.
Transliteration is a translation procedure that maintains the source
language words such as: mall, sandals, orangutan into Bahasa Indonesia
mall, sandal, orang hutan respectively. Naturalization is the adaptation of
source language words to the target language words, for example, the

48
 words kampung, sarung, bambu in Bahasa Indonesia is translated into
kampong, sarong, bamboo, respectively in English.

b. Cultural equivalent.
It is a translation of a source language cultural word into the target cultural
word; an approximate translation is the result. In this procedure, a specific
cultural word in the source language is rendered into a specific cultural
word in the target language, for example the word “pencakar langit” is
translated into “skyscrapers”.

c. Descriptive equivalent.
As the name implies, a descriptive equivalent tries to describe meaning or
function of the source language. This procedure is adopted because the
source language has a close relationship with the culture of specific word
and the use of cultural equivalent cannot give an expected level of
accuracy. For example, “samurai” is not described as “the noblemen” but
“the Japanese aristocracy from eleventh to nineteenth century”. This
equivalent often placed in the glossary. Other procedure similar to this
descriptive procedure is a componential analysis. This procedure is done
by translating a source language word into a target language word and
also by describing components of meanings of the source language word,
for example “memanggul” is translated into “carry on one’s shoulder” in
English.

d. Synonym.
This procedure is used if there is no a clear one-to-one equivalent between
the source language and the target equivalent word, and if the use of
componential analysis may disturb the plot of the of the target language
senyences (Newmark, 1988). For example, the word “cute” is translated
into “lucu” although its real meaning of “cute” should a small size, beauty,
funny, etc.

e. Reduction and expansion.

Reduction in this term means the reduction of component of the source
language such as “automobile” become “mobil”. Expansion is the opposite

49
 of reduction, for example the translation of the word “whale” is “ikan paus”
not just “paus” because the word “paus” means “the pope”.

f. Addition.
Addition in this case is done on the basis of the consideration of clarity
(clearness) meaning. This procedure is usually applied to help translate
words related to culture, technique or other sciences. For example, the
word “predator” is translated into predator” in Bahasa Indonesia but for the
sake of clarity, the translator gives additional information about what
predator is in the footnotes.

g. Official translation.
This procedure makes use of an official translation that has been
standardized by the responsible institution. In translating English into
Bahasa Indonesia, there is a guide for translating English name and words
published by “Pusat Pengembangan dan Pembinaan Bahasa”. For
example the phrase “read only memory” in the guide is translated into
“memori simpan tetap.”

h. Omission or deletion.
It means the omission of word or a part of the source language text in the
target language. The omission is done since the word or part of the text is
not so important for target language text and is rather difficult to translate.
See closely the following example.
Source language: “Sama dengan raden ayu ibunya,” katanya.
Target language: “Just like her mother,” she whispered.
In the translation, raden ayu is not translated. It will not influence the
proportional meaning of the sentence, but cultural significance of the
source language is not conveyed in the target language. In encountering
such a cultural term, the translator needs to give a footnote explaining the
meaning of raden ayu, if necessary.

i. Modulation.
According to Vinay and Dalbenet, modulation is a variation of the form of
the message obtained by the change in the point of view (Venutti,

50
2000:89). This procedure is used for translating phrases, clauses or
sentences and it is adopted when a literal meaning cannot produce a
natural translation. For example “jari tanganku teriris” become “I cut my
finger” in English. In this translation, translator should change the point of
view “jari tanganku” as the subject in Bahasa Indonesia into “my finger” in
English. This change of view is a must in English to make the translation
acceptable.
Followings are modulation concept according to Newmark (1988).
First one is obligatory modulation and the other ones is free modulation.
The translator applies obligatory modulation if there is no natural
equivalent of a word, phrase or structure in target language.
Example:

a. Source Language Target Language

Penyewa Lessee

Pihak yang menyewakan “Lessor”

There is no the word “lessor” in English. But in this case, the

translator uses the word “lessor” to translate “pihak yang
menyewakan” into English. Here the translator uses his/her own point
of view to do his/her task.

b Active voice in source language becomes passive voice in target

language or vice versa.
1. infinitive of purpose in English:
Source language: The problem is hard to solve.
Target language: “Masalah itu sukar dipecahkan”

2. passive voice in Bahasa Indonesia into active voice in English.

Source language: laporan itu akan saya sampaikan besok pagi.
Target language: “I will submit the report toworrow morning”

Source language: Susu itu harus kita minum.

Target language : We have to drink the milk.

51
Obligatory modulation also used for translating special word into general
one. Look at the example bellow:

Society = masyarakat
Community = masyarakat.

But in English “society” represents social relationship, while “community”

represents group of people. But there is no specialty like this in bahasa
Indonesia.

Free modulation is a translation procedure that is used for making

the meaning more understandable in target language.
a. Implicitly stated in source language but explicitly stated in target
language.
Example:
Source language: environmental degradation.
Target language : “penurunan mutu lingkungan.

In bahasa Indonesia “penurunan mutu lingkungan” is more

understandable than “degradasi lingkungan.” But, the vice versa also
sometimes happen, look at the example follows:
Source language: These conflicts, which more often than not have
regional causes….
Target language: Konflik-konflik ini, yang lebih sering disebabkan oleh
sebab-sebab regional….

b. Causality prepositional phrase in source language translated into

causality clause in target language.
Example:
Source language: We all suffer from the consequences of
environmental degradation
Target language : Kita semua menderita karena (adanya) penurunan
muru lingkungan

52
 j. Adaptation.
Different from adaptation method (see translation method), adaptation
procedure is an effort to find cultural equivalence between two situations.
The culture differences between source language and target language
need to be adapted. The opening of the official letter, for example, Dear sir
in English translated into Dengan hormat, not Tuan yang terhormat (Hoed,
1976).

k. Contextual conditioning. This is a shift where the translator put information

in a context to make the meaning clearer for the readers. For example:
1. Selamat malam can be translated into good evening and good night.
Here the translator plays his/her role which one will be taken based on
the context of situation, when selamat malam is spoken.
2. Local cultural expression must be translated by explaining the context.
Example:
a. The mustang was the fastest in the race. We should translate
“Kuda mustang….” to avoid ambiguity.
b. Hari ini empat puluh harinya ibunya.

The underlined phrase can be translated into the fortieth day but will
cause ambiguity for the target language readers if the translator doesn’t
add the context, of her mother’s death.

Exercises
Translate the following texts into Bahasa Indonesia
1. A federal summer-job program.
2. It is necessary for you to know.
3. SBY administration officials cringe when JW Marriot and Ritz Carlton
exploded.
4. Phonetics (the scientific study of speech production) embraces not only the
constituents and patterns of sound-waves (ACOUSTIC PHONETICS) but
also the means by which the sound-waves are generated within the human
vocal tract (ARTICULATORY PHONETICS). PHYSIOLOGICAL
PHONETICS, which is sometimes distinguished from articulatory phonetics,
is concerned specifically with the nervous and muscular mechanisms of

53
speech. The term GENERAL PHONETICS refers to a set of principles and
techniques for the description of speech that can be applied to any language;
it should be distinguished from a more restricted type of phonetics concerned
with those principles and techniques which are required for a phonetic
statement of a specific language. Hence, for example, the phonetics of
English will require some theoretical constructs which are not necessary for
the phonetics of Swahili, and vice versa. In this article, the aim is to present
the essential features of a general phonetic theory.
The discipline of phonetics has a long history. In India, it originated in
the work of certain Sanskritic linguistic scholars between about 800 and 150
BC (see Allen 1953:4–7 for details). In Europe, amongst the Classical Greek
and Roman linguists it did not achieve the same importance, although the
phonetic descriptions of aristotle, Dionysius Thrax, and Priscian merit
attention (see e.g. Allen 1981). In the Middle Ages, a number of Arab and
Muslim scholars showed considerable interest in phonetics (see Bakalla
1979 for a summary). From the sixteenth century onwards, especially in
Britain and Western Europe, the subject attracted the attention of a number
of scholars, but for a long time, until well into the nineteenth century, much of
the work was carried out under the aegis of other subjects such as rhetoric,
spelling reform, and language teaching. Starting in the second half of the
nineteenth century and continuing into the present, the discipline has
determined its own fields and methods of enquiry, building on concepts in
anatomy, physiology, acoustics and psychology, and freed itself from its
association with other disciplines—although its connection with linguistics
remains a close one. (The articles in Asher and Henderson 1981 trace the
historical development of particular aspects of phonetics.) At the present
time, much of the research in phonetics is undertaken in departments and
phonetic laboratories in Britain, Europe and Japan; the contribution from
North America, although important, has been relatively small in relation to
the number of institutions devoted to linguistics. (taken from AN
ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF LANGUAGE)

54
 Chapter 5
Translation Technique
If we open the dictionary, the word technique means a practical method, skill, or art
applied to a particular task. There are two important things in the definition. The first
is practical and the second is technique applied to a particular task. Technique is
different from procedure because procedure tends to normative while technique is
practical—directly be related to the problem of translation.

A. Translation technique and Function of the Text

A translator should not only reproduce the lexical and grammatical meaning in
performing his/her task but also pay special attention to the text function.
Followings are some function of the text according to Rochayah Machali
(Rochayah Machali, 2000:78)
1. Vocative function.
Vocative function is a function of a text as an “instrument” to influence or
invite one and/or more people. In this kind of text, the writer usually uses the
word “we”, “should”, and “must”.
Example:
We should continue to promote South-North co-operation even as we
enhance South-South co-operation. We should be pragmatic and
realistic. We must expect and be prepared for some diversion of OECD
trade and aid resources from the developing world to East Europe and
Russia.

2. Esthetic Function.
Here the translator should use his/her “sense of esthetic”. Sense of esthetic
should be re-reproduced by the translator. Rochayah Machali gives the
example bellow
Di luar salju terus. Hampir pagi.
Tubuhmu terbit dari berahi.
Angin menembus. Hilang lagi.
Nafasmu membayang dalam dingin. Mencari.
(part of Ranjang Pengantin Kopenhagen, 1971 by Goenawan
Mohammad)

55
 Hary Aveling translate these verses into
Outside snow falls. Almost day.
Your body shaped in desire.
The wind pierces. And departs.
Your shadow in the cold. Searching.

In the target language, it is clear that translator ignoring the rhymes formed in
the source language. He also translates “pagi” into “day”. Compare the first
target language with this

Outside snow falls. Almost morning.

Your body shaped in sensual feeling.
The wind pierces. And is clearing.
Your breath a shadow in the cold. Searching.

In the second translation, translator tries to adopt the rhyme and form of the
source language. Translating poetry/verses like this is not always easy but the
translator should try to use his/her sense of esthetic here.

B. Translation Technique and Language Style

In performing their task, translators should also pay more attention to the
language style in source language especially the use of “powerful” connotation
in official news. Following is the example:
The non-aligned movement is determined to actively participate in all
efforts toward a successful resolution of hotbeds of crises in the world,
irrespective of their historical or contemporary causes, ensuring that
solutions are not imposed by outside powers to the detriment of the
interest of the parties directly concerned.

The use of underlined word/phrase shows the “powerful” style. Just

compare, if the writer uses “decides” instead of “is determined”, and is omitting
the verb, so, “soft” style is the result.
In this case a translator has to work hard to reproduce the source
language text character into target language. From the example source
language, Rochayah Machali translates into Bahasa Indoensia as follows

56
 Target language a:
Gerakan Nonblok merasa terpanggil untuk ikut serta dalam usaha
meredakan ketegangan, dalam rangka mencari solusi atas setiap krisis
yang terjadi di dunia ini. Dalam usaha tersebut, Gerakan Nonblok
berupaya agar kekuatan luar tidak ikut campur.

Target language b:
Gerakan Nonblok berketetapan untuk secara aktif berperanserta
dalam segala upaya pemecahan gemilang bagi permasalahan atau
krisis di dunia, tanpa memandang apakah penyebab historisnya lama
atau baru, untuk menjamin bahwa pemecahan permasalahan tidak
ditunggangi oleh pihak-pihak luar demi kepentingan pihak-pihak yang
terlibat secara langsung.

In target language a, by ignoring the pragmatic equivalent, the language style

is quite different from the source language. In this translation tends to use
aspect of denotative meaning and not connotative one so the language style is
not “powerful”. But in target language b, although the grammatical looks
unnatural, the translator here worked hard to try to get “powerful” language
style by selecting the powerful words such as “berketatapan”, “pemecahan
gemilang”, and “ditunggangi”.
Thus, the translator of target language b strives for total equivalent,
because he/she considers the language style of source language.

C. Technique in Translating Idiom

Definition
According to Collins English Dictionary, idiom is a group of words whose
meaning cannot be predicted from the meaning of the constituent word. The
definitions, idiom is a linguistic usage that is grammatical and natural to native
speakers of a language. Followings are the example:

I. based on the first definition

Source language
a. It is raining cats and dogs.

57
 b. Tom is a lucky dog
c. Don’t break your mother’s hearth.

II. Based on the second definition

In this group we may find some grammatical construction using which, of
which, to which, etc. followings are the examples
a. I have no pen with which I can write.
b. The book of which he speaks to is good.
c. The house to which I went is my uncle’s
d. The hotel at which we stayed is beautifully built.

In the group one, faithful translation may result good target language both
grammatically and lexically, but the contextual meaning may not, like, It is
raining cats and dogs into Hujan kucing dan anjing. By reading this target
language the readers (Indonesian) will confuse, what does the sentence mean?
That’s why, in translating idiom, the translator should apply a special
technique. The following section will discuss the technique.

How to translate idioms in Group I.

For the first group, the most possible way is by using semantic and
communicative method of translation, because it needs functional equivalent
(equivalence that is easy to understand). This equivalent is considering context
of the text.
The context plays very important role here. For example is the first
sentence, It is raining cats and dogs. In this case translator should pay more
attention to the context not the text. May be the translator should see the
situation when cats and dogs meet each other, and correlate this situation with
the rain. Now the translator may translate this sentence into Hujannya deras
sekali or Hujannya lebat sekali. By the same way, it is now possible to translate
other examples. Tom is a lucky dog has two meanings, the first one is, there is a
dog named Tom and the second one, dog is person, so the sentence means
Tom adalah orang yang beruntung. They are all depend on the context of the
text.

58
 How to translate idioms in Group II.
Translating idiom group II faithfully will result awkward target language. I have
no pen with which I can write into “Saya tidak mempunyai pena dengan mana
saya bisa menulis” or “Saya tidak mempunyai penga yang dengannya saya bisa
menulis” are awkward sentences in Bahasa Indonesia. In solving this problem
we can apply the same technique as in group I, but the translator have to pay
special attention to the syntactical relationship between “which” and the thing
which is referred to. Followings are the steps to solve the problem:
1. Translate the word “which” into “yang” but there is a verb modulation.
2. The translator makes a verb modulation by adding proper affixes
(prefix or suffix).
This step (using the semantic and communicative method) will result the
following target language sentences.

1. Saya tidak mempunyai pena yang bisa saya gunakan (untuk) menulis.
2. Buku yang ia bicarakan tersebut adalah buku bagus.
3. Rumah yang saya datangi adalah rumah paman saya.
4. Hotel yang saya tinggali bagus bangunannya.

The translator, however, should pay more attention to the word “which”
because sometimes this word is not followed by verb, for example: He talked of
events, all which were true. To translate this sentence the translator should put
the word all after which so the target language is Ia membicarakan tentang
semua kejadian yang kesemuanya benar.

D. Technique in Translating Metaphor

Definition
Metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object
or action that is does not literally denote in order to imply a resemblance. There
are some kinds of metaphor but here will discuss only two examples.
Example:
- Ali is a lion in the battle.
- John is a book worm.

59
Meaningless sentence is the result if the translator translates those two
metaphors literally. Ali adalah singa dalam peperangan and John adalah cacing
buku.

Translation technique in translating metaphor

The translator may find similar metaphor in target language if any, but if no
similar metaphor in target language, the translator may use the same technique
as translating idiom-semantic and communicative method.
By using the first step we will get
“John adalah kutu buku”
“Ali laksana singa padang pasir”
But the translator may use the second step, then we will get
“Ia adalah orang yang suka sekali membaca”
“Ali adalah orang yang sangat berani.”

60
 Chapter 6
Translating Special Topics1

1. Stereotype and Sexism

This is all about gender (social relationship between man and woman), but in
this book is about text sexism. According to lakoff (1975), sexism is based on
the assumption that woman’s position (in all aspects) is always lower than man,
and this phenomenon is reflected in the language.
Generally sex stereotype is an attribute for man and woman that have
been nurtured and structured in the community. The woman, for instance,
usually identical with passive, weak, obedient, etc., characters, while man
usually attributed as strong, active, initiative taker, etc. characters. Usually the
people tend to receive this attributes with no conditions. Through this attributes
are then formed “sexual division of labor”, such as woman is a housewife, taking
care children, cooking (domestic roles), while man is a leader of the family, hard
worker (public roles). That’s why although a widow is a hard worker to raise her
children, the people still consider her as a housewife not a “leader of the family.”
Anybody remember when we were studying in elementary school and
learned to make sentences. Our sentences possibly like this: Ibu memasak di
dapur sedangkan ayah membaca Koran or Wati bermain boneka di ruang tamu
sedangkan Budi bermain sepak bola di lapangan. This stereotype is a cultural
product of the nurture not nature. This phenomenon is culturally reflected in the
language which is used in a community. Language is means of communication.
Besides, language is also reflected a community and culture where the language
is from.
There are some examples quoted here: public role, activity, power, etc. are
considered as a domain of man. That’s why, in English, for instance, the word
“God” is referenced to pronoun “He” because this word contains attribute of
“power” that is suitable for man. Also in Bahasa Indonesia we can see the
phrases “tiang rumah tangga”, “kepala rumah tangga”, are identical with a man,
because “tiang”, and “kepala” are attributes of “strong”, “superior”. But the
phrase “ibu rumah tangga” doesn’t contain this attribute, so it is suitable as a
woman attribute.

1
All explanations and examples in this chapter are taken randomly and adapted from Rochayah
Machali book “Pedoman Bagi Penerjemah”, 2000.

61
Sexism in Language and Language System
The phenomenon of language “division of labor’ through sexism in a language
not only happens in Bahasa Indonesia but also in English but in different forms.
In English, for example, we often see this phenomenon involving pronouns. The
English-speaking people, mostly woman, usually use the expressions “O, God, I
forgot again”, or ”O, dear, why did I do that?”, but, “Shit I forgot again!’ or
“Bloody hell! I forgot again!” mostly spoken by man.
Difference of pronoun man (he) and woman (she) in English, makes this
language sexism visible more explicitly, but in Bahasa Indonesia it is seen more
implicitly. Look at these example: “Budi mengawini Wati”, “Budi melamar Wati”
or “Wati dikawini Budi”, “Wati dilamar Budi”. In the examples “Wati” remains in
the passive position, this situation agrees with the stereotype of Indonesia
people. It is hard for Indonesian to say “Wati mengawini Budi”. If the
writer/translator put Wati in ‘more’ active position he/she will not write “Wati
mengawini Budi” but only ‘neutralize’ the verb into “Wati kawin dengan Budi”.
In solving this problem a translator should have a “good sense” in detecting
this sexism and translate it properly. The translation result should agree with the
sexism in target language. Look at this text and try to translate into bahasa
Indonesia

The great ship, Titanic, sailed for New York from

Southampton on April 10th, 1912. She was carrying
1316 passengers and 891 crews. Even by modern
standard, the 46.000 ton Titanic was a colossal ship. At
that time, however, she was not only the largest ship
that had ever built, but regarded as unsinkable ship,
because the ship has sixteen watertight compartments.
Even, if two of these compartments were flooded, the
ship still be able to float. The tragic sinking of this great
liner will always be remembered, because she sank on
her first voyage with heavy lost of life.

Try to translate this text into English

Bila seorang gadis berkenan di hati seorang pemuda,
maka ia memberitahu orang tuanya untuk melamar

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 pujaan hatinya itu. Orang tua si jejaka kemudian
mengadakan lamaran kepada orang tua si gadis.
Upacara ini si sebut mepadik namun ada pula cara
yang disebut merangkat, yaitu melarikan si gadis
untuk dinikahi. Cara ini sering pula dilakukan, karena
caranya sederhana dan biayanya tidak mahal.
Biasanya pihak keluarga sang pria memberitahu pihak
keluarga sang gadis tentang peristiwa pelarian itu.
(Rochayah Machali, 2000: 128 from Ragam Budaya
Daerah, 1992).)

2. Case of Translating Politic and Culture Texts

Let’s start this sub-chapter from this text. The following text is taken from the
Australian Geography and published by Australian-Indonesian Institute, 1999).

When Indonesia annexed the former Portuguese

colony of East Timor in 1975 many Australian
understood this as part of the process of
decolonization. Other Australians were unhappy with
this situation, believing that East Timor should become
an independent country.

The text above is reflecting Australian view about East Timor in the past before
becoming Timor Leste. According to many of Australian Indonesia was annex
East Timor. So, the first version of target language must be:

Ketika Indonesia mencaplok Timor Timur, bekas koloni

Portugis di tahun 1975 banyak orang Australia yang
melihatnya sebagai proses dekolonisasi. Banyak orang
yang beranggapan bahwa Timor Timur seharusnya
menjadi negara yang merdeka.

This perspective, of course, doesn’t agree with the Indonesian government

especially on Suharto’s New Order. Indonesian government considers East
Timor as the 27th province of Indonesia because the people of East Timor in

63
1975 wanted to be a part of Indonesia through integration process not
annexation or colonization. So the second target language reflects the view of
government and people of Indonesia and the result is as follows:

Ketika Timor Timur, sebagai bekas jajahan Portugis,

berintegrasi dengan Indonesia pada tahun 1975,
banyak orang asutralia menganggapny sebagai
process dekolonosasi. Ada (juga) orang asutralia yang
tidak senang dengan cara ini, karena menurut mereka
Timor Timur seharusnya menjadi negara yang
merdeka.

From the 1st and 2nd we can see clearly that those translation contains two quite
different political perspectives. It is impossible for the 1st target language text to
be published in Indonesia but by changing the word “mencaplok” inti
“berintegrasi” the text of course will be allowed and published in Indonesia. One
thing we should remember here, although the translator translates “annex” into
“berintegrasi”, it doesn’t change the main content of text about Australians view
about East Timor.

Translating the Case of Cultural Meaning

The example of source language of this sub-chapter is a part of poem composes
by a poet Toety Heraty, “Surat dari Oslo”

Surat dari Oslo

Sudah kuterima surat undangannya
Terima kasih, jadi anakmu akan menikah?
Baru ini kali berita, ah, ternyata
anak-anak kita telah merasa cukup dewasa.
Katakan saja sebagian sebagian tugasmu selesai sudah
dan tentu selamat saya ucapkan, terbayang, kalian.
mendampingi penganten jejer-jejer ngagem sinjang
tak sempat terharu barangkali, terlalu sibuk
semua harus berlangsung sesuai rancangan.
Pasti kalian juga merasa sangat dekat, saat itu

64
terikat lagi oleh peristiwa khidmat, lebih dari biasa —
Bagaimana, apakah memang jadi
menikah dengan yang dulu itu pacarnya?
Sayang, aku tidak dapat hadir apalagi membantu
meringankan dalam kesibukan yang meriah
sekaligus mengukuhkan suatu keberhasilan.
Bukankah orang tua ikut mencetak nasib anaknya
meski Khalil Gibran agak berbeda pendapatnya. Aku ingat
sekali waktu kecil,
ia berbaju biru kotak-kotak, dengan rambut tebal
dikepang dua, sehat, bulat, dan manja —
ikut bertamu dengan ibunya, menarik-narik baju
berbisik merengek: “mama pulang! –
Apa masih tetap manja, apa mereka dengar asehat, bahkan
masih mau menurutinya
lalu kini, siraman air kembang dahulu, midodareni
sebelum esok menghadap penghulu –
Tarup, janur, gamelan dan gnding kebo giro
penganten bertemu, berlempar sirih, wijiadi,
sindur ibu, pangkon ayah, dulangan, kacar-kucur
sesuai adat jawa
Aku mohon pada yang Maha Kuasa supaya
terkabul semua keinginan mereka, dan…

in the poem, it is clear that the writer, Toety Heraty expresses her feeling about
her friend’s daughter marriage. In some parts she uses Javanese to make
cultural meaning clearer. If we read the whole, we can see three important
aspects in a wedding: individual, family, and socio-cultural aspect. The translator
has to pay the same attention those three aspects.

Now (in group of three or four) try to translate the poem into English! Then
compare your own translation result with the following result!

This is the English version of “Surat dari Oslo” translated by John McGlynn
1990)

65
Letter from Oslo
I received the invitation.
Thank you. So, your daughter is getting married?
This is the first word of it I’ve had. Well, it seems
our children feel themselves sufficiently grown up.
Just consider that a part of your duty is done
and, of course give my regards. I can see you all
flanking the bride and groom-the tintinnabulation of gongs
behind you-no chance even for emotion, perhaps
being too busy making sure everything proceeds as planned
A special closeness I can imagine you’ll feel,
even more so than usual,
bound at the moment by sacred event-
And is the man she’s going to marry
the one who used to be her boyfriend?
I am sorry I can’t be there, and more sorry that I can’t help
to lighten the burden of your celebration
nor reaffirm your success
Kalil Gibran might say different
but do parents not help to determine their children’s fate?
I remember her so well as a child
with a blue-checkered blouse, her tight hair tied in two braids
healthy, plump an pampered and trailing after her mother
pulling on her dress and whining “Mama, I wanna to go home!”
Is she still so very pampered, or maybe children do listen to advice
and learn, the sprinkle of the water from an earthen jug-
before facing God and his servant tomorrow
The nuptial awnings, woven palm leaves, the orchestra
and wedding songs
the bridal couple meets, betel leaves thrown in exchange
a red sash for the bride’s mother, asking father’s blessing,
the ritual exchange of food, symbols of obedience
and property distributed, all keeping with Javanese tradition
I pray to the most Powerful

66
That all their wishes are granted, and after that

If we see closely, the meaning of source language has been reflected in the
target language. But there is basic shift of form in the target language (see the
underlined phrase). The shift is ‘flanking the bride and groom –the sound of
gongs”. Cultural meaning correlated with the ‘subject’ is translated become
‘object’ (the sound of gongs). As if the translator want to say that the wedding is
an ‘object’—can be watched, enjoyed and the sound of gongs is listened.

67
 Chapter 7

Further Reading

A. Translation from Hallidayan Perspective

1. Introduction

Translation phenomenon has attracted different people miraculously, so there

has been different categorization for it. Generally speaking we have word-for-
word, literal, faithful, semantic, adaptation, free, idiomatic, communicative and
cognitive translation. In a closer look we can have Roman Jakobson's
interlingual, intralingual and intersemiotic, Dryden's metaphrase, paraphrase and
imitation, George Steiner's literal, free and faithful, and Cicero's Word-for-word
and sense-for-sense.

Translation has always been of great need in human societies. I define

translation as a process through which a passenger (ST) by help of a pilot
(translator) takes a flight to its destination (TT). There has been different views
toward translation process, its method and quality assessment. Despite variety
of view points toward translation, we have normally three parties involved :
Author, translator and reader in case of written translation and speaker,
interpreter and listener in case of oral translation. Without doubt the text to be
translated happens in a context. Context can be a written piece or every thing
else that helps to understanding of the meaning or message. In this case
translator should pay attention to the context of situation or register to be able to
render the acceptable translation in TT.

In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose

or in a particular social setting. For example, an English speaker may adhere
more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a
velar nasal (e.g. "walking", not "walkin'") and refrain from using the word "ain't"
when speaking in a formal setting, but the same person could violate all of these
prescriptions in an informal setting.

The term register was first used by the linguist Thomas Bertram Reid in 1956,
and brought into general currency in the 1960s by a group of linguists who

68
wanted to distinguish between variations in language according to the user
(defined by variables such as social background, geography, sex and age), and
variations according to use, "in the sense that each speaker has a range of
varieties and choices between them at different times" (Halliday et al., 1964).
The focus is on the way language is used in particular situations, such as
legalese or motherese, the language of a biology research lab, of a news report,
or of the bedroom.

M.A.K Halliday and R. Hasan (in 'Cohesion in English') interpret 'register' as 'the
linguistic features which are typically associated with a configuration of
situational features - with particular values of the field, mode and tenor.

Register concept comes under the bigger heading of language variation which is
a determining factor in selecting the right meaning. Halliday believed types of
linguistic situation differ from one another, generally speaking, in three ways:
what actually is taking place; what is the role of language; and who is taking
part. They determine the range within which meanings are selected. He also
paid especial attention to sentence as default equivalence level. Equivalence in
its own turn can be considered as a reasonable criterion for quality assessment.
Quality assessment shows how well the pilot has let the plane land on in
destination. Register analysis plays the role of weather condition which
guarantees the safety of flight and landing if analyzed correctly by the pilot.
ATC worker 's correct calculation which clears the way for landing, plays the role
of correct selection of equivalence level.

2. Register or context of situation is set of vocabularies and their meanings,

configuration of semantic pattern, along with words and structures such as
double negative (among black American) used in realization of these
meanings.It relates variation of language use to variations of social context.
Every context has its distinctive vocabularies. You can see a great difference in
vocabularies used by mechanics in a garage and that of doctors. Selection of
meanings constitute variety to which a text belongs.

Halliday discusses the term Register in detail. This term refers to the relationship
between language (and other semiotic forms) and the features of the context. All
along, we have been characterizing this relationship (which we can now call

69
register) by using the descriptive categories of Field, Tenor, and Mode.
Registers vary. There are clues or indices in the language that help us predict
what the register of a given text (spoken or written) is. Halliday uses the example
of the phrase "Once upon a time" as an indexical feature that signals to us that
we're about to read or hear a folk tale. Halliday also distinguishes between
register and another kind of language variety, dialect. For Halliday, dialect
variety is a variety according to the user. Dialects can be regional or social.
Register is a variety according to use, or the social activity in which you are
engaged. Halliday says, "dialects are saying the same thing in different ways,
whereas registers are saying different things."

3. Register Variables delineate relationship between language function and

language form. To have a clear understanding of language form and function,
we have an example here. Consider words cats and dogs. Final s in both has
the same written form. In cats it is pronounced /s/, but in dogs it is pronounced
/z/, so they have different spoken form. It functions the same in both because it
turns them into plural form. Language functions are also of great
importance.Some of language functions are vocative, aesthetic, phatic,
metalingual, informative, descriptive, expressive and social. Among them the
last four ones are more important here, so let's take a brief look at them.

Descriptive function gives actual information. You can test this information, then
accept or reject it.(It's – 10° outside. If it's winter it can be accepted. But in
summer it will be rejected in normal situation.).

Expressive function supplies information about speaker and his/her fleeing.(I

don't invite her again. It is implied that the speaker didn't like her in the first
meeting.). Newmark believes the core of expressive function is the mind of
speaker, the writer or the originator of the utterance. He uses the utterance to
express his feelings irrespective of any response.

Social function shows particular relationship between speaker and listener.(Will

that be all sir? The sentence implies the context of a restaurant.).

Informative function Newmark believes the core of informative function of

language is external situation, the facts of a topic, reality outside language,
including reported ideas or theories. The format of an informative text is often

70
standard: a textbook, a technical report, an article in newspaper or a periodical,
a scientific paper, a thesis, minutes or agenda of a meeting

3-1. Field: or the features of the situation, lend themselves to a certain kind of
language use. The language is filled with words related to objects in the
environment ("train" "rails" "chair"), the processes of the activity ("go" "carry"
"put" "round and round") and so on. What's happening to the nature of social
action that is taking place? In other words" what is being written about.

3-2. Mode: or the part played by the language itself, in the event, that is, the
textual function. In this case, the spoken channel, in English, alternates between
dialogue and monologue. The talk is highly task-oriented: the focus is on getting
something accomplished (rather than having a conversation). Thus, there is
frequent use of pronouns which refer to objects in the environment ("it" "that").
Further, utterances in which words are omitted ("Which engine [do you want]?"),
a feature in linguistics called ellipsis, signals dialogic text. Finally, the close
association among the words across the whole interaction make the entire text
cohesive; that is, the two participants are using language to co-construct a
meaningful communicative event.

What participants expect language to do for them in that situation?

3-3. Tenor: or the relationships between the participants, also lend themselves
to a particular kind of language use—the interpersonal functions of the
language. In this case, the person-reference choices ("Daddy" "you" "I") and use
of imperatives ("Daddy go and see" "I don't want") can be seen.Who are taking
part in transaction, nature of participants, their role and status. In other words"
who is communicating and to whom, e.g a child to his father.

They set up a communicative transaction in the sense that they provide basic
conditions for communication to take place.

4. Meaning components meaning in linguistics is what a language expresses

about the world we live in or any possible or imaginary world. Ideational meaning
organizes the speaker's or writer's experience of the real or imaginary world, i.e
language refers to real or imagined persons, things, actions, events, states, etc.
Textual meaning creates written or spoken texts which cohere within themselves

71
and which fit the particular situation in which they are used. Interpersonal
meaning indicates, establishes, or maintains social relationships between
people. It includes forms of address, speech function, etc.

Halliday believes meaning is fundamental component of language and

each variables of register is associated with a strand of meaning. These strand
of meaning together form the discourse semantic. You can find the relationships
in the following chart.

Relationship of register variables and meanings

Register Variables Discourse

Semantics

Field is
Ideational meaning: it is realized through transitivity
associated
patterns(verb types, active/passive structures)
with

Textual meaning: it is realized through thematic and

Mode is information structures(mainly word order and
associated structuring of elements in a clause) and cohesion(the
with way the text hangs together lexically, including the use
of pronouns, ellipsis, collocation, repetition, etc.)

Tenor is Interpersonal meaning: it is realized through the

associated pattern of modality (modal verbs and adverbs such as
with should, possibly and evaluative lexis such as beautiful)

72
Relationship between language components (ideational, interpersonal and
textual meaning) and register variables (filed, tenor and mode); or the way
variables condition three types of meanings from perspective of context is called
realization.

5. Register Theory Language varies according to the situation in which it is

used, and these varieties of language can be referred to as registers. If we
examine a text we can make guesses about the situation; on the other hand, if
we are in a particular situation we make certain linguistic choices based on that
situation. In other words, the language we use needs to be appropriate to the
situation in which we use it.

Followers of Australian (Hallidayan) perspective believe texts arise in specific

social situation, constructed by specific purpose where meanings find their
expression and are negotiated in concrete situation of social exchange.

Interaction between texts and contexts = nexus between language and society.

Text is piece of written or spoken language. It can be as short as one word or as

long as a novel. Every text finds its meaning in a context. Consider the text"
loud" in context "loud music" or in " loud tie." The former means noisy while the
latter means unpleasantly colorful!"

Three variables _ field, tenor and mode, combine to form the register of the text.

6. Translation the term translation itself has several meanings: it can refer to
subject field, the product (the text that has been translated) or the process (the
act of producing the translation, otherwise known as translating). The process of
translation between two different languages involves the translator changing an
original text (ST) in original verbal language (SL) into a written text (TT) in a
different verbal language (TL). In this replacement, only form of SL is changed
and the meaning is held constant.

Translation in this view is a contextual thing; a cross-cultural communication,

communicative act that attempts to render the exact contextual meaning in such
a way that both content and language are readily acceptable to the readership. It
should be clear, simple, social and produce on its reader an effect as close as

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possible to that obtained on the readers of original. It conforms to a particular
register of the language, concerns mainly with the receptors usually in the
context of a language and register variety and recreates the precise flavor and
the tone of original.

Translator has right to modify and clarify jargons, and normalize bizarre idiolect.

Now it's time to answer the question "what is a good translation?" simply it
depends on your criterion.

7. Equivalence can be a good criterion provided that we accept equivalence

as criteria, it is both central and controversial. Central in that it's necessary
condition for translation and controversial in that it's obstacle to progress in
translation studies / useful category for describing translation. Equivalence exists
at different levels.

7-1. Equivalence at word level:

o Word is smallest unit which we expect to posses individual meaning.

o Bollinger and Sear(1968): Word is the smallest unit of language that
can be used by itself.
o Morpheme is constituent part of word which can't be further analysed.

7-2. Equivalence above word level:

o It refers to collocations made in terms of what is typical or untypical.

o New collocations are made naturally by analogy or because speakers
create unusual collocations purposefully.
o Recurrent collocation: collocation with history of recurrence in language
that become a part of our standard linguistic repertoire and we don't
stop to think about them while reading a text.

o Non-recurrent collocations: collocation with little or no history of

recurrence and catch our attention and strike us as unusual.

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7-3 Grammatical equivalence:

o Grammar is organized along two main dimensions: morphology (covers

word structure) and syntax (covers grammatical structure).
o Grammatical choices are obligatory, they are more resistant to change.
o Grammatical rules are more resistant to manipulation by speakers.

7-4. Textual equivalence:

7-4-1. Thematic and information structure:

o Theme : it is what the clause is about.(known / old information)

o Rheme : it is what speaker says about the theme.(unknown / new
information)

7-4-2.Cohesion:

o network of lexical, grammatical and other relations that provides links

between various parts of a text.
o Cohesive devices are: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and
lexical cohesion.

7-5. Pragmatic equivalence:

o Coherence is network of conceptual, contextual relations.

o Coherence of a text is result of interaction between knowledge
presented in the text, reader's own knowledge and experience of the
world.

Which equivalence level can be considered as good criteria for assessing the
quality of translation? There are different views in this respect.

Koller: equivalence is special relationship between 2 texts; source (primary) and

resultant one.

Jakobson: there's no full equivalence between code-units (ST &TT) because

they belong to different sign systems (languages.)

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Nord: equivalence is static result-oriented concept describing equal
communicative value between 2 texts, or on a lower rank between words,
phrases and syntactic structures.

Halliday: equivalence of units and items is lost as soon as we go below the

sentence level. The lower the rank, the less is left. Morpheme is untranslatable.
The higher the stratum, the more valuable the equivalence.

Halliday's equivalence is our focus of attention. Based on what he said,

equivalence at word level can't be acceptable. In his view sentence is default
track and translator is allowed to translate the thought behind ST sentence to
TT.

8. Assessing the quality of a translation through Hallidayan perspective

In assessing the quality of a translation through Hallidayan perspective, we

should take sentence as the unit of equivalence (default) that finds its meaning
in a special context. As an example consider the sentence "we amuse you in our
bank!". Look at the chart.

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Interpretation of the chart:

What do you think is a suitable translation for it? what do you think is an
acceptable translation for it ?We have entertainment devices near our river or
rate of interest is the lowest you have ever heard. It's the context of the text
"bank" that helps you in judging. If you see the sentence on a sign outside city
near a resort center with water, the former translation is right and if you see it on
the wall of a financial institute downtown, the latter will be correct one! In
analyzing the quality of translation, you paid attention to the context of situation
(register) and its variables – mode: what you expect the sentence to do for you
(entertain you or giving a low interest loan), field: what is being written about
(bank of a river or a bank for depositing or withdrawing money), Tenor: Who are
taking part in transaction, nature of participants, their role and status (is the
character in the story a person with casual cloth suitable for camping or a person
in formal cloth and a briefcase).

Conclusion

In assessing the quality of a translation, unless we have a criterion in mind, our

assessment is of no value. This criterion can be equivalence. In this paper
equivalence lower than sentence level isn't acceptable based on what Halliday
said. In processing a sentence to translate it, we should consider its register –
context in which the sentence happens. Context of situation or Register finds
meaning in relation with its variables. Variables can be good determiners of the
context and aim of communication. Translator should analyze every thing in
mind before synthesizing the idea behind ST sentence in TT cast.

- Translation which is a contextual thing and a cross-cultural communication

attempts to render the exact contextual meaning in a natural form in new
language.

- Pilot of translation flight (translator) carries out this process by exact

calculation and careful movement from departure (ST) to destination (TT).
Remember that only a moderate, wise pilot can safely passe all air bumps
(translation traps.)

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 - Register relates variation of language use to variations of social context.
Every context has its distinctive vocabularies.

- Register variables which delineate relationship between language function

and language form are field, mode and tenor.

- Each register variable has a one by one relationship with one meaning out of
three and this relationship is called realization.

- Register Analysis refers to how language is maneuvered to make meaning. It

is a tool that provides necessary link between communicative act and
context of situation (register) in which it occurs. In this process, the translator
analyses the SL message into its simplest and structurally clearest form
(kernels), transfers the message at this kernel level and restructures the
message in the TL to the level which is most appropriate for the audience
addressed.

- Analysts aren't just interested in what language is and what it means, but in
why language is and how it means.

- Register analysis is a part of context in translation; it involves reader in

reconstruction of context through an analysis of what has taken place (field),
who has participated (tenor) and what medium has been selected for
relaying the message (mode).

- Register theory recognizes that different contexts of situation encode

meaning in different way.

2. Linguistic Approach to Translation Theory

Joseph F. Graham in his article Theory for Translation (p.24) asks the question if
the time-honoured act of translation really is a subject that begs to be
theorized. It seems to me that this is indeed the case if the wealth of literature on
the subject available today is any indication. Early attempts at theory can be
traced back over 2000 years to Cicero and Horace, with the key question being
whether a translator should be faithful to the original text by adopting a “literal”

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(word-for-word) approach or whether a “free” (sense-for-sense) approach should
be taken. This discussion continued right through to the second half of the 20th
century when more systematic analyses were undertaken by Western European
theoreticians. These systematic analyses, which elevated translation studies
from its role of being primarily a language-learning activity, centred on theories
of translation in new linguistic, literary, cultural and philosophical contexts
(Munday p.162). It is the linguistic approach that is the subject during the course
of this discussion.

The linguistic approach to translation theory focusing on the key issues of

meaning, equivalence and shift began to emerge around 50 years ago. This
branch of linguistics, known as structural linguistics, features the work of Roman
Jakobson, Eugene Nida, Newmark, Koller, Vinay, Darbelnet, Catford and van
Leuven-Zwart. It wasn’t long however, before some theorists began to realize
that language wasn’t just about structure – it was also about the way language is
used in a given social context. This side of the linguistic approach is termed
functional linguistics (Berghout lecture 7/9/05), with the work of Katharina Reiss,
Justa Holz-Mänttäri, Vermeer, Nord, Halliday, Julianne House, Mona Baker,
Hatim and Mason figuring prominently.

Of course other theorists have contributed to the development of a linguistic

approach to translation, but the abovementioned have been singled out for
discussion primarily because of their influence, and also because they are
perhaps the most representative of the trends of the time.

Douglas Robinson writes that for some translators “the entire purpose of
translation is achieving equivalence. The target text must match the source text
as fully as possible” (p.73). Linguistic meaning and equivalence are the key
issues for the Russian structuralist Roman Jakobson who, in his 1959 work On
Linguistic Works of Translation, states that there are 3 types of translation:

1) intralingual – rewording or paraphrasing, summarizing, expanding or

commenting within a language

2) interlingual – the traditional concept of translation from ST to TT or the

“shifting of meaning from one language to another”

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3) intersemiotic – the changing of a written text into a different form, such as art
or dance (Berghout lecture 27/7/05; Stockinger p.4).

For Jakobson, meaning and equivalence are linked to the interlingual form of
translation, which “involves two equivalent messages in two different codes”
(1959/2000: p.114). He considers Saussure’s ideas of the arbitrariness of the
signifier (name) for the signified (object or concept) and how this equivalence
can be transferred between different languages, for example the concept of a
fence may be completely different to someone living in the suburbs or a prison
inmate. He expands on Saussure’s work in that he considers that concepts may
be transferred by rewording, without, however, attaining full equivalence. His
theory is linked to grammatical and lexical differences between languages, as
well as to the field of semantics.

Equivalence is also a preoccupation of the American Bible translator Eugene

Nida who rejects the “free” versus “literal” debate in favour of the concept of
formal and dynamic equivalence – a concept that shifts the emphasis to the
target audience. This was done in order to make reading and understanding the
Bible easier for people with no knowledge of it (www.nidainstitute.org). Formal
equivalence centres on the form and content of the message of the ST while
dynamic equivalence, later termed functional equivalence (Venuti p.148), “aims
at complete naturalness of expression” (Munday p.42) in the TT. His 1964
Toward a Science of Translating and his co-authorship with Taber in 1969 of
Theory and Practice of Translation aim at creating a scientific approach
incorporating linguistic trends for translators to use in their work (Munday
p.38). He views Chomsky’s theory of Universal Grammar as a way of analyzing
the underlying structures of the ST in order to reconstruct them in the TT, so that
a similar response between the target audience and TT and source audience
and ST can be achieved.

His linguistic theory moves towards the fields of semantics and pragmatics,
which leads him to develop systems for the analysis of meaning. These include:

1) Hierarchical structures (superordinates and hyponyms), such as the

hyponyms “brother” or “sister” and the superordinate “sibling” (Libert lecture

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 24/3/05). In a cultural context it may not be possible to translate “sister”, so
“sibling” may need to be used.

2) Componential analysis, which identifies characteristics of words that are

somehow connected, such as “brother” in Afro-American talk does not
necessarily refer to a male relation born of the same parents.

3) Semantic structural differences where the connotative and denotative

meanings of homonyms are identified, for example “bat” the animal and the
piece of sporting equipment (Berghout lecture 14/9/05).

The British translation theorist Peter Newmark, influenced by the work of Nida,
feels that the difference between the source language and the target language
would always be a major problem, thus making total equivalence virtually
impossible (Munday p.44). He replaces the terms “formal equivalence” and
“dynamic equivalence” with “semantic translation” and “communicative
translation”, and alters the focus of the translation back to the ST with his
support for a literal approach.

Nida’s attempt at a scientific approach was important in Germany and influenced

the work of Werner Koller for whom equivalence “may be ‘denotative’,
depending on similarities of register, dialect and style; ‘text-normative’, based on
‘usage norms’ for particular text types; and ‘pragmatic’ ensuring
comprehensibility in the receiving culture” (Koller in Venuti p.147). He also works
in the area of correspondence, a linguistic field dedicated to examining
similarities and differences between two language systems. One example of this
would be looking at the area of “false friends”, such as the French verb rester,
which does not mean “to rest” but “to remain”.

Although discussion on equivalence has subsided, it still remains a topic that

manages to attract a certain amount of attention from some of translation
theory’s leading figures. Mona Baker and Bassnett both acknowledge its
importance while, at the same time, placing it in the context of cultural and other
factors.

The emphasis of the structural approach to translation changes towards the end
of the 1950s and early 1960s with the work of Vinay, Darbelnet and Catford, and

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the concept of translation shift, which examines the linguistic changes that take
place in the translation between the ST and TT (Munday p.55). According to
Venuti “Translation theories that privilege equivalence must inevitably come to
terms with the existence of ‘shifts’ between the foreign and translated texts”
(p.148).

Vinay and Darbelnet in their book Stylistique comparée du français et de

l’anglais (1958) compare the differences between English and French and
identify two translation techniques that somewhat resemble the literal and free
methods (Vinay and Darbelnet in Venuti p.128). Direct (literal) translation
discusses three possible strategies:

1) Literal translation or word-for-word

2) Calque, where the SL expression is literally transferred to the TL, such as the
English character ‘Snow White’ in French becomes ‘Blanche Neige’,
because the normal word configuration in English of ‘white snow’ would be
transferred as ‘neige blanche’

3) Borrowing – the SL word is transferred directly into the TL, like ‘kamikaze’.

Oblique (free) translation covers four strategies:

1) Transposition – interchange of parts of speech that don’t effect the meaning,

a noun phrase (après son départ) for a verb phrase (after he left)

2) Modulation – reversal of point of view (it isn’t expensive / it’s cheap)

3) Equivalence – same meaning conveyed by a different expression, which is

most useful for proverbs and idioms (‘vous avez une araignée au plafond’ is
recognizable in English as ‘you have bats in the belfry’)

4) Adaptation – cultural references may need to be altered to become relevant

(‘ce n’est pas juste’ for ‘it’s not cricket’) (Vinay and Darbelnet in Venuti
pp129-135).

Two other important features arise from the work of Vinay and Darbelnet. The
first of these is the idea of “servitude”, which refers to the compulsory

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 changes from ST to TT; and “option”, which refers to the personal choices
the translator makes, such as the modulation example above. Option is an
important element in translation because it allows for possible subjective
interpretation of the text, especially literary texts (Munday pp. 59-60).

In 1965 the term “shift” was first applied to the theory of translation by Catford in
his work A Linguistic Theory of Translation. Here he discusses two types of
shift:

1) Shift of level, where a grammatical concept may be conveyed by a lexeme

(the French future tense endings are represented in English by the auxiliary
verb ‘will’).

2) Category shifts, of which there are four types – structural shifts (in French the
definite article is almost always used in conjunction with the noun); class
shifts (a shift from one part of speech to another); unit or rank (longer
sentences are broken into smaller sentences for ease of translation);
selection of non-corresponding terms (such as count nouns).

His systematic linguistic approach to translation considers the relationship

between textual equivalence and formal correspondence. Textual
equivalence is where the TT is equivalent to the ST, while formal
correspondence is where the TT is as close as possible to the ST (Munday
p.60). Catford also considers the law of probability in translation, a feature
that may be linked to the scientific interest in machine translation at the time.

Some thirty years after Vinay and Darbelnet proposed the direct and oblique
strategies for translation, Kitty van Leuven-Zwart developed a more complex
theory, using different terminology, based on their work. Her idea is that the
final translation is the end result of numerous shifts away from the ST, and
that the cumulative effect of minor changes will alter the end product
(www.erudit.org). She suggested two models for translation shifts:

1) Comparative – where a comparison of the shifts within a sense unit or

transeme (phrase, clause, sentence) between ST and TT is made. She then
conducts a very detailed analysis of the “architranseme” or the core meaning

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 of the word, and how this meaning can be transferred to the TL. She
proposes a model of shift based on micro-level semantic transfer.

2) Descriptive – situated in the linguistic fields of stylistics and pragmatics deals

with what the author is trying to say, and why and how this can be
transferred to the TT. It deals with differences between the source and target
cultures and serves as a model on a macro level for literary works (Berghout
lecture 31/8/05; Munday pp 63-66).

The 1970s and 1980s sees a move away from the structural side of the linguistic
approach as functional or communicative consideration is given to the
text. Katharina Reiss continues to work on equivalence, but on the textual
level rather than on the word or sentence level. She proposes a translation
strategy for different text types, and says that there are four main textual
functions:

1) Informative – designed for the relaying of fact. The TT of this type should be
totally representative of the ST, avoiding omissions and providing
explanations if required.

2) Expressive – a “higher” level of literary text such as poetry in which the TT

should aim at recreating the effect that the author of the ST was striving to
achieve. In this case Reiss says “the poetic function determines the whole
text” (Reiss in Venuti p.172).

3) Operative – designed to induce a certain behavioral response in the reader,

such as an advertisement that influences the reader to purchase a particular
product or service. The TT should therefore produce the same impact on its
reader as the reader of the ST.

4) Audomedial – films, television advertisements, etc supplemented with images

and music of the target culture in the TT (de Pedros p.32).

Criticism has sometimes been levelled at Reiss because the chosen method for
translation may not depend only on the text type, which may also have a
multifunctional purpose (Berghout lecture 7/9/05; Munday pp73-76).

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Within the realm of functional linguistics is Justa Holz-Mänttäri’s theory of
translational action that takes into account practical issues while, at the same
time, placing the emphasis firmly on the reader of the TT. This means, for
example, that things like the source text type may be altered if it is deemed to be
inappropriate for the target culture. She sees translation as an action that
involves a series of players, each of whom performs a specific role in the
process. The language used to label the players very much resembles that of
Western economic jargon – initiator, commissioner, ST producer, TT producer,
TT user, TT receiver, that is adding another dimension to the theory of
translation as yet rarely mentioned (Munday pp77-78).

The Greek expression “skopos” that means “aim” or “purpose” was introduced to
translation theory by Hans Vermeer in the 1970s. Skopos theory, which is linked
to Holz-Mänttäri’s translational action theory (Vermeer p.227), centres on the
purpose of the translation and the function that the TT will fulfil in the target
culture, which may not necessarily be the same as the purpose of the ST in the
source culture. The emphasis once again stays with the reader of the TT, as the
translator decides on what strategies to employ to “reach a ‘set of addressees’ in
the target culture” (Venuti p223). Cultural issues in a sociolinguistic context
therefore need to be considered. Skopos is important because it means that the
same ST can be translated in different ways depending on the purpose and the
guidelines provided by the commissioner of the translation.

In 1984 Vermeer and Reiss co-authored Grundlegung einer allgemeine

Translationstheorie (Groundwork for a General Theory of Translation) based
primarily on skopos, which tries to create a general theory of translation for all
texts. As a result, criticism has been levelled at skopos on the ground that it
applies only to non-literary work (Munday p.81); it downplays the importance of
the ST; and does not pay enough attention to linguistic detail. I tend to disagree
with this last point because I look at skopos as a means of reflecting the ability of
the translator. If he/she is able to produce a TT that meets the requirements
stated at the outset of the assignment, which may lie somewhere between the
two extremes of a detailed report or the summary of a sight translation, whilst
working with possible time and financial constraints, then the linguistic level is
not an area that merits criticism.

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Christiane Nord in Text Analysis in Translation (1989/91) states that there are
two types of translation:

1) Documentary – where the reader knows that the text has been translated.

2) Instrumental – where the reader believes that the translated text is an original.

She places emphasis on the ST as she proposes a ST analysis that can help the
translator decide on which methods to employ. Some of the features for review
are subject matter, content, presupposition, composition, illustrations, italics, and
sentence structure (Munday p.83). In Translation as a Purposeful Activity (1997)
her theory is developed as she acknowledges the importance of skopos. The
information provided by the commissioner allows the translator to rank issues of
concern in order before deciding on inclusions, omissions, elaborations, and
whether the translation should have ST or TT priority. By also giving
consideration to Holz-Mänttäri’s role of players, she manages to provide a
viewpoint that accommodates three important concepts in the functional
approach to translation.

Linked to Nord’s theory of ST analysis is discourse and register analysis which

examines how language conveys meaning in a social context. One of the
proponents of this approach was the Head of the Linguistics Department of
Sydney University, Michael Halliday, who bases his work on Systemic
Functional Grammar – the relationship between the language used by the author
of a text and the social and cultural setting. Halliday says that the text type
influences the register of the language – the word choice and syntax. He also
says that the register can be divided into three variables:

1) Field – the subject of the text

2) Tenor – the author of the text and the intended reader

3) Mode – the form of the text

all of which are important on the semantic level. Some criticism has been
directed at Halliday’s complex terminology and his approach, mainly because it
is English-language based (Munday pp89-91; Berghout lecture 7/9/05).

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Juliane House’s Translation Quality Assessment: A Model Revisited (1997) also
examines ST and TT register, and expands on Halliday’s ideas of field, tenor
and mode. She creates a model for translation, which compares variables
between ST and TT before deciding on whether to employ an overt or covert
translation (Stockinger p.18). An overt translation is one that clearly centres on
the ST, in no way trying to adapt the socio-cultural function to suit the target
audience (like Nord’s documentary translation). This means that the target
audience is well aware that what they are reading is a translation that is perhaps
fixed in a foreign time and context. Such is the case with Émile Zola’s Germinal,
first published in French in 1885 and translated into English by Leonard Tancock
in 1954. Readers of the English know that they are reading a translation of a
description of coal mining conditions in northern France in the 1800s, which
retains all proper nouns of the original French text (Ma Brûlé, Philomène,
Bonnemort, Mouque – p.282). This is just one of the techniques used to reveal
the overt nature of the text. A covert translation (like Nord’s instrumental
translation) is one in which the TT is perceived to be an original ST in the target
culture. Such is the case with the guide leaflets distributed to visitors at
Chenonceau Castle in the Loire Valley, which seem to have been created
individually for an English audience and a French audience (and possibly
German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese audiences), so much so that it is almost
impossible to tell which is the ST and which is the TT.

In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation (1992) by Mona Baker, taking

advantage of Halliday’s work, raises a number of important issues. She
examines textual structure and function and how word forms may vary between
languages, such as the substitution of the imperative for the infinitive in
instruction manuals between English and French. Gender issues are raised as
she discusses ways in which ambiguous gender situations can be overcome,
such as adjectival agreement in French. She also discusses three pragmatic
concepts where pragmatics is “the way utterances are used in communicative
situations” (Baker in Munday p.95):

1) Coherence relates to the audience’s understanding of the world, which may

be different for ST and TT readers.

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2) Presupposition is where the receiver of the message is assumed to have
some prior knowledge. “It’s a shame about Uncle John!” assumes the reader
knows that something bad has happened to that person called Uncle
John. This raises problems in translation because TT readers may not have
the same knowledge as ST readers. Possible solutions are rewording or
footnotes.

3) Implicature is where the meaning is implied rather than stated. “John wanted
Mary to leave” may imply that “John is now happy that Mary left” (Libert
lecture 24/3/05), which can lead to a mistranslation of the intention of the
message.

Basil Hatim and Ian Mason co-authored two works: Discourse and the Translator
(1990) and The Translator as Communicator (1997), in which some
sociolinguistic factors are applied to translation. They look at the ways that non-
verbal meaning can be transferred, such as the change from active to passive
voice which can shift or downplay the focus of the action. They also examine the
way lexical choices are conveyed to the target culture, for example “Australia
was discovered in 1770 by Captain Cook” to an Aboriginal audience (Berghout
lecture 12/10/05). However, I believe that they tend to revert to the literal versus
free discussion with their identification of “dynamic” and “stable elements within
a text, which serve as indicators for a translation strategy (Munday
p.101). Mason, in his essay Text Parameters in Translation: Transitivity and
Institutional Cultures (2003) thinks that Halliday’s Systemic Grammar should be
viewed in the context of translational institutions, such as the European Union
where it “might make a more significant contribution to translation studies”
(Venuti p.333). Interestingly, the outcome of this paper reveals a tendency for
EU translators to “stay fairly close to their source texts” (Mason In Venuti p.481).

Like all other theories, discourse and register analysis has received its share of
criticism. It has been labelled complicated and unable to deal with literary
interpretation. The possibility of the author’s real intention being determined,
along with its fixation in the English language are also subject to some scrutiny.

The linguistic approach to translation theory incorporates the following concepts:

meaning, equivalence, shift, text purpose and analysis, and discourse register;

88
 which can be examined in the contexts of structural and functional linguistics,
semantics, pragmatics, correspondence, sociolinguistics and
stylistics. Meanwhile, as translation strives to define its theory through the
linguistic approach, Eugene Nida’s scientific approach has evolved into a quest
for a more systematic classification of all translation theories, which he says
should be based on linguistics, philology and semiotics (Nida p.108).

3. Is Translation a Rewriting of an Original Text?

Introduction

Wardhaugh (1986) states that the structure of a given language determines the
way in which the speakers of that language view the world. Different languages
reflect different values and cultures; therefore, in an attempt to mediate different
languages, values or cultures, translations "nearly always contain attempts to
naturalize the different culture to make it conform more to what the reader of the
translation is used to" (Lefevere, 1999: 237). As a result, translations are rarely
equivalent to the original. Bassnett (1980) further argues that translated texts are
so far removed from the original that they need to be considered as independent
products of literature.

Within the target-oriented approach to translation, which views translation as a

cultural product of the target system, Toury (1995) focuses on the translated
texts, their processes, features and functions, isolating them from their context
and ideology, thereby not fully addressing the quality in translation. While
Lefevere (1992a) also follows the view on translation as a cultural product of the
target system, he addresses ideology and power which initiate the act of
translation in his analysis.

Rewritings or translations reflect the rewriters'/

translators' efforts in adapting the text to
function in a given society in a given way.

According to Lefevere (1992a: vii), translation is produced on the basis of an

original text with the intention of adapting the original to a certain ideology or

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poetics of a different audience, and it is an activity performed under constraints
of patronage, poetics and ideology initiated by the target systems, as such it is
an act of rewriting of an original text to conform to certain purposes instituted by
the receiving system. He also points out that of the different forms of adaptations
that writers commonly engage in, including: translation, criticism, commentary,
historiography and anthologies, translation is the most obviously recognizable
type of rewriting that is influential in projecting and disseminating the image of
original writers and their works beyond the boundaries of their culture of origin
(Lefevere, 1992a: 9).

This paper will examine Lefevere's concept of translation as a form of rewriting

of an original text through an analysis of my chosen texts. The excerpts will be
studied by using a Systemic Functional Linguistics (systemic linguistics)
approach which provides "a semantic account of the grammatical structures of
the language" (White, 2001: 3) to demonstrate how the translator of the example
text transports the source text (ST) messages into the target text (TT). Neubert
and Shreve (in Lantaigne, 2001: 26) present the concept of communicative
equivalence as encompassing the underlying value and ideology of the text. The
communicative functions and meanings reflected in the structure and patterns of
the ST and the TT will be examined for this purpose. By comparing the
meanings and functions embedded in both texts, issues such as ideology and
power embedded in the example text will be addressed. Furthermore, their
influence on the target audience as well as on the projection of the original writer
and his or her work will be discussed.

Example texts of my choice

The ST is an excerpt of a leader article which was originally published on 12

February, 2006 in The Japan Times, an English daily newspaper published in
Japan. The TT is the Japanese translation of the ST published in The Japan
Times Editorials which is also edited by The Japan Times. Both the ST and TT
are compiled in The Japan Times Editorials. The Japan Times Editorials is
targeted at Japanese audience who are learning the English language and its
aim is to assist them develop their reading comprehension skills in English.

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The ST which will be analyzed in this paper is an article about the unexpected
pregnancy of the 39-year-old princess who is the sister-in-law of Masako
Owada, the 43-year-old Crown Princess of Japan. The backdrop to this news is
that the current constitution of the target society only allows the imperial family's
male members to succeed the throne; however, since the Crown Prince and
Princess' only child is a girl, the government tried to pass a new law to allow the
family's female members to succeed the throne. Just as this new law was about
to be enacted, the news of Princess Kiko's (the Crown Princess' sister-in-law)
unexpected pregnancy was announced and immediately halted the enactment of
the new law.

The reasons for choosing the example texts

The primary purpose of the TT is to provide an accurate or equivalent translation

for the learners of English as a foreign language to assist comprehension of the
original English text and to improve their reading skills in English. If the TT is
deemed accurate or equivalent to the original, one may presume that the
communicative functions and meanings are also identical and equivalent, and
that the translator would not incorporate his or her ideology or poetics to
manipulate the text to function in the receiving culture or society differently from
those imparted in the ST.

However, when each clause was compared from the ST to its TT by applying the
systemic linguistic approach, a number of refractions were identified as a result
of adaptation to the target culture or society while also reflecting a certain
ideology and constraints. There are some traces or indications of the translator's
deliberate manipulation of the text so that the TT functions in the target culture
and society in a certain way.

Lefevere's concept of translation as a form of rewriting is based on his studies of

translations of literary works and their influences on social, cultural and literary
development. Instead of a literary translation, this analysis will be based on
findings from the translation of a newspaper leader article, which is written in
regular everyday language; however, many features of Lefevere's analysis on
literary translation were also identified in the TT.

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Translation and the images of the original work

The target audience which does not have direct access to the original text totally
depends on the translation to gain an idea of the original work and its writer.
According to Lefevere (1992a), rewriters create the images of a writer, work,
period, genre, sometimes even a whole literature. He also stresses that a
writer's work gains exposure and achieves influence mainly through
misunderstanding and misconceptions created by rewriters (Lefevere, 1999:
234). Translation is a text comprised of refractions and it manipulates messages
to project a certain image in the service of certain ideological constraints.
According to Lefevere, this fact is apparent in the passages where translators
insert in their translations—"passages that are most emphatically not in the
original" (1992a: 42).

Lefevere (1992a) also points out that ideology functions as a tremendous

constraint in the act of translation. Ideology is not limited to the political sphere, it
is "the grillwork of form, convention and belief which orders our actions"
(Jameson in Lefevere, 1992a: 16). In the following sections, three categories of
ideology which seem to construct the TT will be explained while referring to
selected examples:

a) the translator's ideology;

b) ideological constraint by power or patronage; and

c) ideological constraint initiated by the target audience.

Reflection of the translator's ideology in the TT

First of all, I will discuss the translator's ideology reflected in the TT below.

Example 1

ST: No wonder the Crown Princess gets depressed

TT: Kotaishihino soutsu jotaiwa murimonai

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Back Translation of the TT (BT): The Crown Princess' depression is
understandable

Although the Process of the ST ("gets depressed") is initiated by Crown Princess

Masako and expresses a certain extent of responsibility on the Crown Princess'
part in her state of depression, the state of her depression becomes the Carrier
followed by the Relational Process ("is") and the Attribute ("understandable") in
the TT. The verbal group of the ST expresses a process in some internal reality
and is accompanied by the Agent which carries a certain responsibility or
dynamic involvement of the Agent, thereby denoting a certain level of
activeness-a higher degree of agency as the outcome of the structural choice
represented. On the other hand, the TT changes the function of the original
Process and represents it as part of the nominal group instead. While the ST
places stress or impact on the princess as the initiator of her depression, the TT
simply depicts the state of her illness. Therefore, the TT is downgraded or
downplayed through rank-shifting. By this, the activeness implied in the ST is
lost.

As it is demonstrated in the above example, the translator uses almost all

equivalents or synonyms in the TT but as he or she changes the Process of the
clause, the TT makes a different statement to that of the original. The translator's
choice in the shift of Process is not due to linguistic or textual constraint, since
the Japanese equivalent of the ST Process may function in the same way as in
the English language. Therefore, it can be regarded that this shift or insertion of
another meaning is due to the translator's deliberate rewriting as it interferes with
the original message and imposes modifications that are not textual or linguistic
constraints.

The target clause places a greater stress on the message that the princess is
not at all responsible for her depression and that her state is "understandable."
One possible reason for this refraction may be due to the translator's own
ideology or sentiments about the Crown Princess' situation. The translator may
be sympathetic to the princess about her unfortunate situation, which is caused
by the tremendous pressure to give birth to a boy—a royal heir. Hence the
translator may have made the TT more inexplicit than the ST and as a result, the
TT expresses more favorable or sympathetic sentiments towards the princess.

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This refraction in the TT also allows the readers to project a slightly more
favourable image about the princess's mental condition. Therefore, it may be
noted that the translator rewrites the original to elevate the image of the Crown
Princess and to recreate the image of the original text.

Reflection of ideological constraints by power or patronage

According to Lefevere (1992a: vii), translation is an activity "carried out in the

service of power"—a control factor or patronage which can be exerted by a
person, groups of persons, a religious body, a political party, a social class, a
royal court, publishers, and the media, including newspapers (ibid: 15). He
further notes that such control factors often act as a force on the translators to
produce translated texts which conform to their patron's ideology (Lefevere,
1992b: 14). As a result, translators often resort to rewriting the original work.
Moreover, Lefevere explains that patronage basically consists of three elements:
an economic component on which the translator depends for his or her living; an
element of status of which could lead to elevating the translator's reputation; and
an ideological component which confines the act of translating (1992a: 16).

The translator of the TT is anonymous and this fact suggests that he or she may
be an employee of the publishing company; therefore the translator could have
been under a constraint to produce a translation with the parameters set by his
or her patron—The Japan Times which does not usually criticize the imperial
family squarely. In other words, the translator might have been compelled to
produce a translation that conforms to the patron's ideology to secure his or her
own economic income. Moreover, as The Japan Times is a well-known
newspaper corporation with a good reputation in the target society, having the
experience of translating for the corporation may allow the translator to elevate
his or her reputation or status as a translator. In this respect, the translator is
also under the constraint of producing a TT which conforms to the ideology of
his or her patron.

One of the most influential components of patronage is ideology and translators

are often under the constraint of a certain ideology of the patronage. The
translator of the example text is under various constraints in the service of power
initiated by his or her employer—The Japan Times. The Japan Times (the

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patron) often takes a relatively conservative position in their opinions about the
imperial family. Therefore, it seems only natural that the translator is under the
constraint of making sure that the TT does not offend the imperial family in any
way and of rewriting the original text to serve the conventions and ideology of
the patron.

In the ST system, the aforementioned ST passage in Example 1 is a simple

straightforward statement and does not imply anything negative about the
princess' situation; however, direct word-for-word translation of the passage into
the target language may connote a slightly negative or insulting message about
the princess, since it subtly suggests that the Princess is responsible for her
illness. Hence the translator shifts the ST process of "gets depressed" to
"depression" followed by the possessive noun "The Crown Princess." The
translator is thus able to avoid projecting a negative image about the Princess.
In the service of maintaining the patron's (The Japan Times) pro-imperial family
stance, it is observed that the translator deliberately tones down and eliminates
the explicitness of the semantic meaning of the aforementioned ST passage in
Example 1 in the course of his or her translation.

Reflection of ideological constraint initiated by the target audience

Venuti (1998: 81-82) explains that, when the translation is governed by a socially
and culturally influential institution, it has a greater effect on the social mores
and the identity-forming process of the target society. In other words, as the
example TT is governed by a newspaper corporation which is influential in the
identity-forming process of the target society, the translator of the TT is also part
of the process. Hence he or she is under tremendous constraint of adapting or
rewriting the original text to respond to the social mores as well as to the
ideological norms of the receiving society.

Although the imperial family no longer holds political power in the target society,
the majority of target readers still highly respect it as the country's symbol in
which the target system takes great pride. Moreover, Princess Masako is also
highly regarded and respected amongst many target readers, since she is a
Harvard- and Oxford-educated former diplomat who is suffering from
accumulated stress and enormous pressure to produce a royal heir. On the

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account of the target audience's respect for the imperial family and their
sympathetic sentiments towards the princess, the translator may have
deliberately rewritten or manipulated the ST in Example 1 and downgraded the
explicitness of its message in order to avoid offending the target audience in any
way. By this, the social mores of the receiving society is also respected and the
translation allows the target audience to maintain its respect toward the imperial
family.

In addition, the passage in Example 1 is the article's opening passage on which

the remaining messages hinge. The impact of the first opening sentence is great
in any text. If the translator starts the TT with exactly the same message as the
original, the majority of target audience who admire the imperial family or the
Crown Princess may be offended or insulted, since the accurate or equivalent
translation would subtly suggest that the Crown Princess is responsible for her
state of depression. And as a result, the target audience might not want to
continue reading the remaining statements of the text. It may also prompt the
target audience to reject the whole text, and ultimately, the target audience may
be critical of the original work or writer. In order to avoid such possible negative
responses, the translator could have rewritten the original intentionally to allow
the target readers accept the text as well as to project a positive image of the
text and its original writer. Consequently, the target audience is able to
concentrate on the tasks of learning English and developing its reading skills. In
this respect, the translator's rewriting may be instrumental in the intellectual
advancement of the target readers.

From the preceding, it is apparent that "rewritings are inspired by ideological

motivations, or produced under ideological constraints" (Lefevere, 1992a: 7). In
the attempt to serve various ideological constraints, the translator inevitably
leaves his or her marks in the translation. Through such manipulation of the
original, the translator may be able to project a certain image of the original work
and its writer.

Rewritings refract the interpersonal distance

Every clause is interpersonal in that all clauses act to position both

writer/speaker or reader/listener in some way. In the TT, the translator employs

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the target language convention of using the honorifics to create a certain
distance between the writer and the imperial family, thereby expressing a
greater degree of respect for the family than the original text. The translator
adapts the original text with an intention to project a certain image of the text and
writer. In this section, I will discuss the interpersonal distance reflected in the TT
in support of Lefevere's view on translation as a form of rewriting.

When the speakers of the target language talk or write about/to individuals, they
resort to various linguistic forms to create distance to express modesty,
politeness and respect for those who are addressed or referred to. The use of
such devices in writing or speaking is mandatory and it is the convention and
part of aesthetics of the target culture. The level of honorifics to be expressed
depends on the social status or reputation of, or respect for the subject.

Since the primary purpose of the TT is to provide Japanese equivalents to the

target audience (learners of English as a foreign language) in order to help them
improve their English reading skills, the honorific language such as sonkeigo, a
form of speech or writing to emphasise respect; kenjogo, to express humbleness
or modesty; and teineigo, to show politeness, are not major components of the
TT. The limitation of applying the honorific protocols in the TT suggests that the
translator may have intentionally limited their use, since they confuse the target
readers in their tasks of learning English. However, there is one instance where
the sonkeigo is inserted in the TT.

The sonkeigo is a form to express one's respect and admiration for a social
superior. In this form of writing or speaking, nouns and verbs are replaced by
their polite equivalents which usually have no resemblance in their spelling
(characters) or sound. The translator uses the sonkeigo when he or she
translates a statement about Princess Kiko's pregnancy as follows:

Example 2

ST: along comes an unexpected pregnancy to send everything back to square

one.

TT: subetewo furidashini modosu yokisenu gokainin gaatta

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BT: there came an unexpected (but auspicious) pregnancy to send everything
back to square one

In the target language, the standard form of "pregnancy" is ninshin. However,

this form is only appropriate when one refers to the state of pregnancy of one's
own family members or friends. And when it is used to state about the
pregnancy of someone of a high social status, it is inappropriate. The above is a
statement about "an unexpected pregnancy" of Princess Kiko, another member
of the imperial family, hence ninshin is replaced by its polite equivalence—
gokainin. By this modification, the TT politely connotes that her pregnancy is a
happy and auspicious occasion, while also implying a sense of respect for
Princess Kiko.

By applying the sonkeigo in the TT, the translator also succeeds in inferring that
Princess Kiko is not at all to be blamed for the political commotion in halting the
new law to allow a female member to succeed the throne. This manipulation
could be a reflection of the translator's ideology or that of the patron, or even due
to the translator's attempt in rendering the text to conform to the target
audience's favorable sentiments about the imperial family.

In the value system of the target culture, it is important to address people with an
appropriate level of politeness. Politeness or respect is expressed more explicitly
in the target culture than the culture of the source language. In the target culture,
people always address those of a superior social status by their professional or
social title instead of personal pronouns. The use of honorific title also creates
interpersonal distance.

While the example ST refers to Princess Masako as "the Crown Princess,"

"princess" or even "she" sometimes, the TT always refers to her with her formal
honorific title: the Crown Princess. Through the repeated use of the princess's
higher honorific title, the TT expresses a greater sense of respect for her than
does the ST. This may also be the reflection of a certain ideology; therefore it
could be an indication of the translator's manipulation of how the target audience
reads the text and projects an image of the original text and its writer.

Conclusion

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As has been illustrated in this paper, translation involves cultural and ideological
transportation and that translations are often produced under various constraints
to serve certain purposes as they are a constituent of a complex literary, social
or cultural system. Translation therefore takes the form of rewriting that is carried
out within the framework of the target language, culture and ideology in the
service of a control factor wielded by the patron or the receiving system.

In this respect, the translator is a rewriter of the original text as he or she

engages in the act of cultural and ideological transportation and distorts the ST
to accommodate it into the TT. Although rewriters/translators are usually
considered to be meticulous, hard-working, well-read and as honest as is
humanly possible, complete equivalence between ST and TT may be impossible
due to various constraints. Hence rewriters/translators are, in some respects,
traitors, since to a certain extent they violate the original, which they must do to
remain within the boundaries of the target culture (Lefevere, 1992a: 13).

Rewritings or translations are manipulation, since they reflect the

rewriters'/translators' efforts in adapting the text to function in a given society in a
given way. Also, they may be controversial because they can create different
values and practices. However, while their power can be misused sometimes, in
the case described herein the translator has employed his/her power positively
in introducing the ST while preserving the target culture and public morals,
especially with regards to their symbol and pride—the imperial family.

Venuti also acknowledges that translators have the power to influence society
and literature, since translation has "far-reaching social effects" (1998: 81).
Indeed, translators have the power to contribute to the preservation or
enrichment of the target literature and society, as well as to the enhancement of
trust, understanding and respect between different languages, cultures, and
ideologies. Furthermore, they may play an invaluable role in bringing the world
closer and in enhancing humanity's identification with global citizenship.

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4. Cultural and Linguistic Equivalence in Translation

Introduction

Translation peers always encounter with different changes in equivalence within

different language levels range from physical forms into meanings. Catford
(1988) defined translation as the replacement of textual material in one language
(SL) by equivalent textual material in other language (TL). Generally, almost all
translation scholars emphasize the role of equivalence in the process or product
of translation directly or indirectly. Therefore, it is in the center of the translation
studies. It must be said that some scholars do not seem to refer to role of
equivalence directly, however, if some one looks at their studies s/he will easily find
out that equivalence would shed light on his/her studies. As a consequence, the nature
of equivalence and its contribution and taxonomy will be defined in the following lines.

Equivalence, inevitably, is involved in any theory of translation which can be

understood by the comparison of various texts cross linguistically. Catford
(1988) considers different shifts within languages and contends that there are
various shifts when any of translation is carried out by translators. He, heavily,
focused on the different linguistic elements as crucial variables in equivalence
definition and equivalence finding. Accordingly, he divided the shifts across
languages into level and category shifts. Level shifts include studies like
morphology , graphology…… etc. and category shifts consist of structural, class,
unit and intra-system shifts.

There are other notions and assumptions described, explained and interpreted
by translators and translation scholars. The work of Nida and Taber, Vinay and
Darbenet, House and Baker are specifically dedicated to the equivalence, Baker
(1992) regarded some different equivalents in his effort toward the notion and
practice of translatics. She distinguished between grammatical, textual,
pragmatic equivalents, and several others. Vinay and Darbelnet (1995) regarded
translation as equivalence-oriented study. They said that equivalence is the ideal
method in many practical problems of translatics.

Nida and Taber (1964) focused on formal and dynamic equivalence; their
flexible binary oppositions were revised several times. House (1977) contended

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that equivalence is either overt or covert; hence, she derived here theory of
translation based on this taxonomy.

Translatics or translation like many disciplines of science was scientifically

developed in the second half of the century. Because of the fact that all theories
of translation refer to equivalence as the most crucial factor centrally or
peripherally. Dealing with the process of finding equivalence is the most
significant issue existing among translaticists. Although finding equivalence is
subjective, this subjectivity must be based on the taxonomies defined by
translation scholars.

Studying of factors effecting in the process of selecting equivalence started

under the classifications of translation theoretician. Generally, all translators
cope with finding equivalence in order to convey the translation units better.
During this study and finding, any translation scholar contemplate about the
possible factors which appear to affect it. Some scholars define a borderline
between the equivalence which is related to form and the equivalence that is
relevant to meaning, however, all of them have something in common that is the
approval of some problems which impede finding equivalence. One of the most
important theories of equivalence is the Catford's theory. Catford (1988) defined
his theory based on different levels of equivalence. Afterwards, he explained the
conditions in which all translators deal with the equivalence finding. He divided
factors affecting equivalence finding into two different branches. The first one
was the linguistic factors and the second one was the cultural factors. These two
variables impress the equivalence finding process in various kind of translation.

To sum up, translation is defined by Catford (1988) as the replacement of textual

material in one language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language
(TL). Accordingly, Catford like many translation scholars defined an equivalence
oriented theory. Later on, he went on details and described all kinds of possible
equivalents in his theory. He also said that during the process of selecting,
finding and creating equivalence, any translator should consider at least two
factors, namely, linguistic and cultural factors. He said linguistic factors are those
factors which exist at the levels of concrete form and abstract meaning of any
chunk of language. In addition, cultural factors are those factors that can not be
seen at the level of form or meaning of language, however, they exist among the

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background of mind of speakers and writers of source language, Catford (1988)
said that any translator have to consider both cultural and linguistic elements
and translate based on these two factors. It seems he meant to covey both
cultural and linguistic elements of source language.

As it was mentioned before, there are many definitions on the notion of

translation. Almost all translation scholars in their theories somehow refer to the
equivalence as the most significant part or at least one of the most crucial parts
of translation. Accordingly, various equivalents were described by translators
from different points of view. Scholars found out that the process of finding,
selecting creating equivalence is not always as easy as it seems. In fact, there
are many factors that affect the process of finding and replacing equivalence.
Catford (1988) not only defined the translation and translation equivalence but
also described the factors that put influence on the process of finding
equivalence. He contended that there are at least two different variables that
effect finding equivalence in translation. They are linguistic and cultural
variables.

In terms of details, it must be said that Catford (1988) defined translation as the
replacement of textual material of target language by equivalent textual material
of source language. Moreover, he described linguistic factors affecting
equivalence as those element which exist at the level of concrete form or
abstract meaning of any chunk of language and defined cultural factors as those
elements that exist among the background of mind of speakers and writers and
can not be seen at linguistic levels.

Accordingly, the problem of this study is as follows:

This study aims at discovering the accuracy and effectiveness of cultural and
linguistic factors in finding equivalence. In other words, the writers want to find
the existence and effectiveness of affecting factors in finding equivalence
(cultural and linguistic factors).

Equivalence is the central and integral part of Catford's theory of translation. His
cultural and linguistic factors which put influence on the equivalent appear to
exist cross linguistically. Based on the definition of these elements, this study
posits the crucial factors affecting finding equivalence.

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The following graph will clarify this current study

This study focuses on the bi-dimensional aspects which are very significant in
the transference of equivalence from source text or language into target text or
language. Linguistic elements of source and target languages vary; however, it
does not mean that the translation is impossible. In addition, Most of structures
or language levels shared among languages. On the other hand, Cultural
elements are unique and effective in selecting equivalence.

As long as translation exists, equivalence is its integral part. No matter the

theory is from-based or meaning-based or source oriented or target-oriented, it
always consists of some kind of exchange of equivalence in different levels of a
language. The probable affecting factors are linguistic and cultural ones. If the
existence, accuracy, and effectiveness of above-mentioned factors proved to be
true, it will pave the path for carrying out the translation very correctly and
effectively.

Review of Literature

Theories of Equivalence

Translation defined by many scholars from different notions of view. Some of

translation scholars defined their theories a source-oriented theory, others
regarded the target-oriented theories. There are also theorists who chose a
place in between; however, all translation theories are related to the notion of
equivalence in one way or another. Hence, equivalence plays a crucial role in
translation. In fact, both source and target languages include ranges of
equivalents from the least meaningful level of a language, namely, morpheme to
the big levels like sentence. In the process of translation these levels of

103
language appear to be equivalence levels between source language and target
language. For example, if there is a word in the S.L, it must be translated into
T.L at the word level usually. Accordingly, translation is the matter of
establishing equivalence between S.L and T.L.

Translation developed mainly in the second half of the 20th century. Therefore,
theory of equivalence has been studied scientifically from the beginning of the
second half of the 20th century up to now.

Jakobson and Equivalence in Difference

Jakobson (1959) made a contribution to the theoretical analysis of translation.

He introduced the concept of equivalence in difference. He suggested three
kinds of equivalence known as:

-Intralingual (within one language, i.e. rewording or paraphrase)

-Interlingual (between two languages)
-Intersemiotic (between sign systems)

Nida: Formal Equivalence vs. Dynamic Equivalence

Nida (1964) argued that there are two different types of equivalence. Namely
formal equivalence- which in the second edition by Nida is referred to as formal
correspondence and dynamic equivalence. Formal correspondence focuses
attention on the message itself, in both form and content, unlike dynamic
equivalence which is based upon the principle of equivalent effect.

Formal correspondence consists of a TL item which represents the closest

equivalent of a SL word or phrase. Nida makes it clear that there are not always
formal equivalents between language pairs he therefore suggest that these
formal equivalents should be used wherever possible if the translation aims at
achieving formal rather than dynamic equivalence. The use of formal equivalents
might at times have serious implications in the TT since the translation will not
be easily understood by the target audience.

Dynamic equivalence is defined as a translation principle according to which a

translator seeks to translate the meaning of the original in such a way that the

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TL wording will trigger the same impact on the original wording did upon the ST
audience.

House and Overt and Covert Translation and Equivalence

House (1977) discussed the concept of overt and covert translations. In an overt
translation the TT audience is not directly addressed and there is therefore no
need at all to attempt to recreate a second original since an overt translation
must overtly be a translation. By covert translation, on the other hand, is meant
the production of a text which is functionally equivalent to the ST. House also
argues that in this type of translation the ST is not specifically addressed to a TC
audience.

Baker's Approach towards Equivalence

Baker (1992) defined four kinds of equivalents as follows:

-Equivalence that can appear at word level and above word level, when
translating from one language into another.

-Grammatical equivalence, when referring to the diversity of grammatical

categories across languages.

-Textual equivalence when referring to the equivalence between a SL text and a

TL text in terms of information and cohesion.

-Pragmatic equivalence, when referring to imprimaturs and strategies of

avoidance during the translation process.

Vinay and Darbelnet and Their Equivalence Definition

Vinay and Darbelnet (1995) view equivalence-oriented translation as a

procedure which replicates the same situation as in the original, whilst using
completely different wording. They also suggest that, if this procedure is applied
during the translation process, it can maintain the stylistic impact of the SL text
in the TL text.

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Catford and Translation Shift and Equivalence

Catford (1996) in the revision of his book introduced a very perfect taxonomy
towards translation.

Cartford's approach to translation equivalence clearly differs from that adopted

by Nida since Catford had a preference for a more linguistic-based approach to
translation and this approach is based on the linguistic work of Firth and
Halliday. His main contribution in the field of translation theory is the introduction
of the concepts of types and shifts translation. Catfrod proposed very broad
types translation in terms of three criteria:

1. The extent of translation (full translation vs partial translation).

2. The grammatical rank at which the translation equivalence is established

(rank bound translation vs. unbounded translation).

3. The levels of language involved in translation (total translation vs. restricted

translation).

He also defined the shifts which exist within different languages.

His category is as follows:

Shifts will be divided into two parts level shifts: (morphology, graphology,….) and
category shift which include structural shift (order of words in a sentence) and
class shifts (part of speech) and unit shifts (sentence, clause, phrase, word) and
intra-system shifts (structure of parts of speech)

Catford (1996) described his latest category of equivalence (his notable

contribution in the field of translation). It is the binary taxonomy which sheds light
on the translation studies. In fact, Catford (1996) studied the equivalence and
found out that there are two factors which affected the equivalence. They are
linguistic and cultural factors. These two factors brought two equivalents. They
are linguistic and cultural equivalents. This finding of Caford is very significant
because it consists of both important approaches toward equivalence, namely,
linguistic and cultural approaches. In fact, what other translation scholars

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defined separately and one by one, Catford described and explained in one
binary opposition (cultural and linguistic factors or equivalents).

Conclusion

Prior to the Catford's theory, five other studies were defined. By deeply looking
at these studies, Catford understood that the prior 5 studies (Jakobson, Nida,
House, Baker, and Vinay & Darbelnet) could be divided into two groups. The first
group included jakobson's, and Vinay & Darbelnet's that mainly defined and
focused on linguistic aspects of equivalence. The second group consisted of
Nida's, House's, and Baker's that emphasized on the cultural dimensions of
equivalence. Therefore, Catfrod (1988) introduced a new taxonomy included
both linguistic and cultural aspects, in fact; he utilized the others' ideas and put
them in his categorization. What Catford and the others theorized is illustrated
as follows:

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5. Equivalence

Much ink has flown on discussing the term equivalence in translation. The
proponents of this notion, as Nida (1964), Newmark (1981), Jacobson (1959-
2000), Bayar (2007) and others, try hard to define its nature, types and also
compare its degrees as a crucial subject of research in translation, whereas
other opponents like Vander Broek (1978), Mehrach (1997) and Van Leuven
(1990) consider it as an impossible point for the translator to reach, and a
hindering matter in the development of translation theory. The aim of this
discussion is to shed as much as possible light on theories and writings that
have dealt with the notion of equivalence and its degrees.

a. Equivalence and contemporary equivalence theories

In fact, the increase in studying equivalence in translation coincides with the

birth of a strong wave of research in machine translation. Van Leuven Zwart
(1990:227 cited by Mehrach, 1997) states:

It [equivalence] was used then in its strict scientific sense, to refer to an

absolute symmetrical relationship between words of different
languages.[1]

That is, the aim of researchers to develop automatic translation led to

concentrate on the equivalent effects that exist between words from different
languages, hence the proliferation of equivalence studies.

The Russian-born American structuralist Roman Jacobson (1959-2000: 114) is

considered to be one of the earliest theorists who were occupied by the study of
equivalence in meaning. Jacobson claims that "there is ordinarily no full
equivalence between code units" (qtd by Munday, 2001).[2] To corroborate
his idea, Jacobson uses the example of ‘cheese’, which does not have the same
equivalent of the Russian ‘syr’. For the latter's code unite does not have the
concept ‘cottage cheese’ in its dictionary (for more clarifications see Munday,
2001).[3] So, the term is better to be translated by ‘tvarok’ not ‘syr’. Jakobson
also points out that the problem of both meaning and equivalence is related to
the differences between structures, terminology, grammar and lexical forms of
languages. Jacobson stated that "equivalence in difference is the cardinal

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problem of language and the pivotal concern of linguistics." (qtd by
Munday, 2001)[4]

In his work on Bible translation, Nida (1964) concentrates on studying meaning

in both its semantic and pragmatic natures. He breaks with the old stories, which
regard meanings of words as fixed and unchanged, to give meaning a more
functional nature. For him, words get their meanings according to the context
and can be changed through the culture in which they are used. Needless to say
that Nida distinguishes between many types of meaning: linguistic meaning,
referential meaning and emotive meaning (Munday, 2001).[5]

Besides, Nida's concept of meaning in translation is, to some extent, influenced

by the Chomskyan theory of 'generative transformational model'. The latter
theory focuses on the universal features of human language. For Chomsky,
each language is composed of a deep structure that undergoes the process of
transformations and a surface structure produced by these transformations and
is subject to phonological and morphophonemic rules. In his translation of the
Bible, Nida adopts these two structures; i.e., deep and surface structures, and
focuses more on the former structure, since it contains the core of meaning. Yet,
Nida's treatment of meaning is different from that of Chomsky. Edwin Gentzler
(1993)[6] said that:

Chomsky investigates the meaning inherent in the sign cut off from
cultural context; Nida's primary concern is not with the meaning any sign
carries with it, but with how the sign functions in any given society.

Actually, the relegation of cultural context from the Chomskyan theory is the core
of difference between him and Nida. But, despite the differences in goals and
interests between the two theories, both of them share the same view about the
nature of language as including a deep structure and a surface one (E. Gentzler,
1993).[7]

Nida's theory of translation is characterized by the distinction between two types

of equivalence: formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. For formal
equivalence, the translator focuses on the message itself, that is, its form and
content, and there should be a close similarity between the ST and the TT
message (Nida, 1964).[8] This source-oriented type is described by Kelly (1979:

109
131 qtd in Mehrach, 1977)[9] as an approach that "depends on one-to-one
matching of small segments, on the assumption that the centre of gravity
of text and translation lies in the significance for terminological and artistic
reasons."

In the same context, Munday, (2001)[10] points out that ‘gloss translation’, with
scholarly ‘footnotes’ are the most typical of formal equivalence, as they allow the
student to understand the source culture's language and customs.

Concerning dynamic equivalence, Nida mentions that this type is based on "the
principle of equivalent effect", in which "the relationship between receptor
and message should be substantially the same as that which existed
between the original receptor and the message." (Nida, 1964: 159, qtd by
Munday)[11]

Nida gives paramount importance to the notion of ‘naturalness’. He claims that

the main aim of ‘equivalent effect’ is to achieve "the closest natural equivalent
to the source language" (Nida, 1964).[12] Actually, ‘naturalness’ as a basic
key-word in Nida's theory relies on the adaptation of grammar, cultural
references and lexicon of the ST. It goes without saying that Nida privileges the
preservation of the text meaning on its style, since it allows the translator to
create the same equivalent effects.

To sum up, Nida's aim in his book Towards A Science of Translation is to

redefine principles and rules that govern and evaluate the degree of sufficiency
of translation (Gentzler, 1993).[13] Comparing form and content of texts, Nida
mentions that content should come first in translation. He argues that formal
translators who focus more on forms of poetry, for instance, are more likely to
misinterpret the "intention of the author", and more apt to "distort the
meaning" (Nida, 1964).[14] According to Nida, the dynamic translator is more
faithful than the literal one, since he (DT) may perceive "more fully and
satisfactorily the meaning of the original text" (Nida, 1964).[15] Finally, using
Munaday's words, we can say that Nida's notion of ‘equivalent response’ is of
paramount importance for any translator to achieve an advanced level of
success (Munday, 2001).[16]

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It should also be noted that Newmark's distinction between 'communicative
translation' and 'semantic translation' in his book Approaches to Translation
(1981)[17] is similar to Nida's types of equivalence. For 'communicative
translation', which tends to create the same effects on the reader of the TT as
those obtained by readers of the ST, resembles Nida's notion of dynamic
equivalence, whereas, 'semantic translation', which focuses on the rendition of
the contextual meaning of the SLT according to the syntactic and the semantic
characteristics of the TLT, is similar to Nida's formal equivalence.

However, many critics of the 'equivalent effect' by Newmark come in his

Textbook of Translation (1988). Newmark sees Nida's 'equivalent effect' as:

The desirable result, rather than the aim of any translation. […] It is an
unlikely result in two cases: (a) if the purpose of the SL text is to affect and
the TL translation is to inform (or vice versa); (b) if there is a pronounced
cultural gap between the SL and the TL texts.[18]

We infer from this quotation that the 'equivalent effect' is a result which all
translators long to achieve. However, this result can be unachievable if the SLT
and the TLT do not share the same goal; i.e., to inform or to affect, or if they do
not have the same cultural equivalents. The possession of cultural references,
together with the remoteness in time and space reduce the possibility of
achieving 'equivalent effects', except in case the reader is imaginative, sensitive
and has a good knowledge of the SL culture (Newmark, 1988).[19]

Further, Newmark (1988) argues that the text may reach a 'broad equivalent
effect' only if it is 'universal', as in this case the ideals of the original text exceed
all cultural frontiers.[20]

The other figure of translation theorists who devotes a great deal of research to
the notion of equivalence is Koller (1979). The latter, according to Mehrach
(1997: 14) and Munday (2001:47), distinguishes between five types of
equivalence: 'denotative equivalence' refers to the case where the ST and the
TT have the same denotations, that is conveying the same extra linguistic facts;
'connotative equivalence', also referred to as 'stylistic equivalence', is related to
the lexical choices between near synonyms; 'text normative' refers to text types,
i.e., the description and analysis of a variety of texts behaving differently;

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'pragmatic equivalence', also called 'communicative equivalence', is oriented
towards the receptor of the text, as he should receive the same effect that the
original text produces on its readers; 'formal equivalence', may also be referred
to as 'expressive equivalence', is related to the word-for-word rendition of forms,
aesthetic and stylistic features of the ST.

It goes without saying that Koller (1979: 176-91, qtd by Munday, 2001)[21]
devotes a large part of his research to the examination of the relation between
‘equivalence’ and ‘correspondence’. For the former examines the equivalent
items in both the ST and the TT and it is based on De Saussure's parameter of
‘langue’, while the latter can be related to contrastive analysis, as a field of
comparative linguistics and is based on the De Saussure's ‘parole’.

Moreover, the term equivalence continues to be a central issue for many years.
Theorists and scholars try hard to define it as a way to enhance its role in
translation. According to Broek (1978), J. C. Catford defines 'translation
equivalence' as:

Translation equivalence occurs when an SL [source language] and TL

[target language] texts or items are related to (at least some of) the same
relevant features of situation substance. [22]

Newmark (1986) uses the term 'text-bound equivalence', while North (1991)
works on 'functional equivalence'. Mona Baker also devotes her work to
equivalent types, and argues that equivalence is always relative in the sense
that it is influenced by many linguistic and cultural factors (Mona Baker,
1992).[23]

Additionally, the development in equivalence research is also characterized by

the work of the Syrian theorist Monia Bayar (2007). In her book To Mean Or Not
To Mean, Bayar distinguishes between formal equivalence, semantic
equivalence, cultural equivalence and pragmatic equivalence. For her, formal
equivalence "designates an area of correspondence ranging around the
word, albeit involving lower units such as the phoneme or the
morpheme".[24] She also states that transliteration; categorical correspondence
such as the correspondence of 'noun to noun, verb to verb' between ST and TT;

112
and textual correspondence such as length, stylistic aspects, meter, rhythm and
rhyme, are all instances of 'formal equivalence' (Bayar 2007).

As far as semantic equivalence is concerned, Bayar (2007)[25] notes that this

type relies on the preservation of many semantic criteria: denotation,
connotation and propositional content. According to her, words which do not
have the same equivalent meanings could be translated by 'explanatory
expressions' as a way of compensation. For instance, the English word ‘nod’ that
has not an equivalent word in Arabic, can be translated by the expression
/?anζama bi ra?sihi/ (p.163-7). For the third type, 'cultural equivalence', Bayar
(2007) considers it to be the most difficult and 'controversial kind of equivalence',
since it is related to 'human identity'. She defines it as follows:

Cultural equivalence aims at the reproduction of whatever cultural features

the ST holds into the TT. These vary from things specific to the
geographical situation, the climate, the history, the tradition, the religion,
the interpersonal or inter-community social behavior, to any cultural event
having an effect on the language community.[26]

It is clear from this definition that 'cultural equivalence' consists of the rendition
of the SL cultural features into a TL in a way that helps the reader understand
these foreign cultural features through his own cultural ones. Actually, 'cultural
equivalence' can be easily reached in case the cultural words under translation
are universally known. However, this can be diminished with cultural differences
that languages may have. Arabic and English are a case in point. Further, Bayar
(2007)[27] discusses the importance of preserving the author's ideology if the
translation is to be qualified as equal to the ST.

As far as 'pragmatic equivalence' is concerned, Bayar (2007)[28] points out that

this type tends to reproduce the context and text goals of the SL. She also
shares the same idea with Hatim and Mason (1990: 236-8) that "pragmatic
equivalence subsumes all of the semio-pragmatic-communicative layers of
communication."[29] Examples of these semiotic and communicative
dimensions are genre, field, mode, tenor, text type and translation purpose
(skopos).

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In brief, it is true that Bayar's types of equivalence have already been tackled by
many western theorists, but her illustrative views on the phenomenon enhance
its importance in translation studies, and helps in the development of research in
equivalence.

However, the notion of equivalence or equivalent effect is not tolerated by many

theorists. The opponents of equivalence refuse its existence in translation. In his
essay The Concept of Equivalence in Translation, Van den Broek states that
"we must by all means reject the idea that the equivalence relation applies
to translation." (Broek, 1978)[30]

He also opposes the idea of equivalence in translation as a form of linguistic

synonymy, ensuring that the latter does not exist even with words of the same
language (p.34). Besides, Broek rejects terms like similarity, analogy, adequacy,
invariance and congruence, and the implications they may have in translation.

Broek also redefines the term equivalence by the concept of "true

understanding" (p.29). In the same context, Van Leuven notes that the concept
of equivalence "not only distorts the basic problem of translation, but also
obstructs the development of a descriptive theory of translation" (Van
Leuven, 1990: 228 qtd by Mehrach).[31] Van Leuven also mentions that
equivalence proponents relegate the importance of crucial factors such as 'the
situation of the utterance', 'the intention of the speaker' and 'the effect on the
hearer' (Van Leuven 1990:228 qtd by Mehrach, 1997). Further, the Moroccan
scholar M. Mehrach (1997) also considers equivalence "an impossible aim in
translation." He corroborates his saying by the idea that no two languages
share the same linguistic structures, and social or cultural aspects. Instead, he
proposes the use of the term 'adequacy' as a reference for the 'appropriate'
translation, that is, "a translation that has achieved the required optimal
level of interlanguage communication under certain given conditions."[32]

In brief, it is clear from the above conflicting views and theories that the notion
of equivalence is arbitrary and relative as well. It is, in fact, difficult to determine
since no one could objectively define the point at which the TT becomes equal to
the ST. Thus, to be moderate as much as possible, we will not define
equivalence as a point of translation proficiency or reject its existence in

114
translation as some wished, but we will, instead, use it as a form of
approximation in which the TT approximates the ST. we will also use the term
equivalence as a scale that ranges from optimum degree to zero degree. So,
what are these degrees of equivalence? And what characterizes each one?

b. Degrees of equivalence

According to Monia Bayar (2007),[33] equivalence consists of seven degrees:

optimum translation, near-optimum translation, partial translation, weaker and
stronger translation, poor translation, mistranslation and zero equivalence/non-
translation. Each degree has specific characteristics that keep it distant from the
other. In our distinction of these degrees, we will focus on the pragmatic and
cultural aspects as the two main dimensions that may assess the degree of
preservation of the ST goal, or as Bayar calls it 'the superordinate goal'.

Optimum translation

It refers to the highest level of approximation to the ST. Monia Bayar (2007)
defines it as "the closest equivalence degree attainable, given the
circumstances, the linguistic and extralinguistic resources actually
available to the translator."[34] In other words, a TT may reach the optimal
degree when it preserves the 'superordinate goal' of the ST and its five
requirements (genre, field, mode, tenor and type). Additionally, the TT is said to
be optimal when it looks semantically and grammatically well-formed, with
sentences that cohere to each other to serve the ST goal and preserve its
content, and also when the TT is readable and easy to understand by receptors.
Any deviation from these characteristics distances the translated text from the
optimal degree. To illustrate these points let us work on the samples below:

a)

1-Eng ST: He was armed to his teeth.

2-Arb TT1: ‫كان مسلحا حتى أسنانه‬

3-Arb TT2, (optimal): ‫كان مدججا بالسالح‬

b)

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1-Eng ST: He kicked the bucket.

2-Arb TT1: ‫ركل الدلو‬

3-Arb TT2, (optimal): ‫وافته المنية‬

Despite their smooth readability and well-formed grammar, the examples (2) of
these idiomatic expressions are rejected and distanced from reaching the
optimum degree in translation. This is because of their detraction from the ST's
goals and contents. On the contrary, examples (3) show a fine degree of
optimality, since they succeed in carrying the same implicatures and cultural
aspects of the STs. In brief, optimum translation is a feasible translation, and the
more simple the text is, the more possible for the translator to reach the optimal
degree of translation. The example below clarifies this:

c)

1-Eng ST: Zidan shoots the ball.

2-Arb TT1: Zidan frappe le ballon. (Optimal)

3-Arb TT2: ‫( ضرب زيدان الكرة‬Optimal)

The simplicity of the ST helps to reach the optimum degree in translation. Yet,
the problems with optimum translation rise while dealing with literary translation
and more specifically poetic translation, since its rendition is governed by many
aesthetic and stylistic rules.

Near-optimum translation

Near-optimum translation refers to the case where the ST superordinate goal

and sub-goals are cohesively and coherently rendered to the TT, but do not
reach the readability of the optimal degree from a textual point of view. For the
sake of clarification, we will use the example given by Monia Bayar (2007).[35]

d)

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SL: If you happen to have read another book about Christopher Robin, you may
remember that he once had a swan.

TT1: S'il vous est arrivé de lire un autre livre sur Christopher Robin, vous
pourriez peut-être vous rappeler qu'il avait un cygne. (Near optimal)

TT2: S'il vous est arrivé de lire un autre livre qui parle de Christopher Robin,
vous vous rappelleriez alors qu'il avait un cygne. (Optimal)

Reading this example, we notice that the French version TT1 wrongly uses the
adverb ‘sur’ and the verb ‘peut-être’ in translation, the fact that negatively affects
the smooth readability of the TT. The TT2, on the contrary, is an example of the
optimal translation, since it preserves the smoothness and fluency of its
readability.

Partial translation

Partial translation refers to the case in which the ST is partially rendered to the
TT; that is, the translator partially translates the text’s superordinate goal. In this
type, it should be noted that readability and correctness of the TT do not mean
its preservation of the ST, for the TT might be read smoothly, without conveying
the ST goal.

e)

Eng, ST: Never too old to learn.

Arb, TT1: (partial translation) ‫ليس للتعلم سن يحده‬

Arb, TT2: (optimal translation) ‫أطلبوا العلم من المھد الى اللحد‬

Here, we can see that the first (1) TT does not cover the whole superordinate
function or goal of the ST as in the TT2; hence, TT1 is partial, while TT2 is
optimal.

Weaker and stronger versions

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Using Monia Bayar's words, some translations are called weaker versions
because they reproduce the ST goals in 'attenuated terms' if compared to the
original, whereas, others are named strong versions for their use of stronger
terms in their rendition of ST goals.[36] To clarify these types let us observe the
differences in the examples below:

f)

Eng, ST: Once bitten, twice shy.

Arb, TT1: (weaker version) ‫عندما تلدغ مرة تصبح خجوال مرتين‬

Arb, TT2: (optimal) ‫ال يلدغ المؤمن من جحر مرتين‬

Arb, TT3: (stronger version) ‫كثرة الخجل تأتي من اللدغ‬

The distance or the approximation of these versions (weak/strong) from the

optimum degree depends on the degree of their alteration of the ST goal.

Poor translation

In poor translation, readability is the core of the problem. Though the TT may or
may not preserve the ST superordinate goal, it is read with great difficulty by the
receptor. In other words, poor translation occurs when the translator fails to
transfer the ST goals into a readable TT and in an obvious way that helps the
reader grasp them easily.

g)

Arb, ST: ‫يلومونني في حب ليلى عواذلي ولكنني من حبھا عميد‬

Eng, TT1: (poor translation). My reproachers blame me for loving Laila / but I am
with her love smitten.

TT2 (optimal): My reproachers blame me for loving Laila / but I am deeply

smitten with love for her.[37]

The TT1 shows a poor translation because the reader cannot easily
comprehend the ST goal.

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Mistranslation

In mistranslation the TT neither sounds readable nor preserves the

superordinate goal of the ST.

i)

ST: It is raining cats and dogs.

TT1: (mistranslation) ‫انھا تمطر قططا وكالبا‬

TT2: (optimal) ‫ينھمر المطر مدرارا‬

Here, we see that TT1 not only distorts the superordinate goal of the ST, but
also seems out of context and unreadable.

Zero equivalence

Zero equivalence occurs when there is no one-to-one equivalent between the

ST and the TT. This happens when the translator deals with texts that contain
many culturally-bound words or expressions. Examples of this are the words
‘kassāl’, ‘tajin’ and ‘innur’ in Moroccan Arabic, and the English word ‘nuts’, which
hasn't a word equivalent in French (see Bayar, 2007).[38] In fact, zero
equivalence rarely occurs at the text level, except in some literary forms as
poetry and fairytales, and in case it happens, the translator may use translation
recreation instead.

In general, equivalence in translation can be measured by a scale of degrees

that ranges from optimal equivalence to zero equivalence. These degrees of
equivalence might be measured by the levels of approximation or distance from
the ST 'superordinate goal'. While optimal equivalence is considered as the
highest level in equivalence, or the most approximate degree from the ST, zero
equivalence is related to the lowest degree of equivalence or the most distant
degree from the ST goal.

119
 References

Baker, Mona, 2001, Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, London:

Routledge

Collinge, N.E, 1990, An Encyclopedia of Language, London: Routledge

Lamiran, Sudarmaji, 2007, Dictionary of Translation, Malang: HermesGroupWay,

Inc.

Machali, Rochayah, 2000, Pedoman Bagi Penerjemah, Jakarta: PT Grasindo

Robinson, Douglas, 1997, Becoming a Translator, London: Routledge

Sujono, Adiloka, 2004, A Concise Look at Theories of Translation, Malang:

Unpublished

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