Translation Theory

Mirvan Xhemaili, PhD
TRANSLATION
Old French translation or

Latin translatio
At first, a merely practical activity used to reinforce

language learning
Now, Translation is an academic field in its own right
Here we talk about written translation, rather than oral

translation (a.k.a. interpreting)
What is translation?
Which of the five points below do you most agree with?
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 and
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
5.The translator, even of highly technical texts, is

more like a poet or a novelist than like a machine
translation system
THE PROCESS
Source text (ST) -------------Target text (TT)

In source language (SL) in target language (TL)
E.g. An English text (ST) is translated into Albanian (TL)

and becomes a target text (TT).
This is an ‘interlingua translation’ (see next slide)
One has to be brilliant in both languages.

Different types of text. (Content/Law) Audience/Reader
Translation
• Written transfer of a text from one language to another
• Intercultural transfer and content.
•Adaptation
ROMAN JACOBSON
Three categories of translation:
a. Intralingual or rewording (in the same language, e.g.

subtitles for hard-to-hearing people)
b. Interlingual or translation proper (from one language

into another, cf. Example above)
c. Intersemiotic or transmutation (verbal signs into non-

verbal sign systems, e.g. A novel into a musical )
TRANSLATION STUDIES
In 2008, EU estimated the turnover of the translation

and interpreting industry at €5.7 billions.
Translation has always been part of human

communication, used in particular to transmit religious
texts.
Only after the second half of the Twentieth Century, TS

became an academic subject, with specialized
translating and interpreting programmes.
HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLINE
The writings --Cicero and Horace Roman rhetorician

and orator (first century BCE) and St Jerome (Bible
Translator) (forth century CE), by now the patron saint
of all translators.
From the late 18th century to the 1960s – grammar-

translation method
replaced by the direct method or communicative

approach in the 1960s and 1970s
In the 1960s, the USA promoted the translation

workshop concept based on Richards’s reading
workshops and practical criticism approach that began
in 1920s; running parallel to this approach was that of
comparative literature where literature in compared
HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLINE
The USA 1930s-1960s/70s – contrastive analysis of

similarities and differences in languages
More systematic, and mostly linguistic-oriented, approach

1950s-1960s:
1. Jean Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet (French/English)

2. Alfred Malblanc (French/German)
3. Georges Mounin (linguistic issues of translation)
4. Eugene Nida (based on Chomsky’s generative grammar)
5. James S. Holmes’s “The name and nature of translation
studies” is considered to be the ‘founding statement’ of a
new discipline
6. Theo Hermans’s ‘Manipulation School’
7. Vieira’s Brazilian cannibalist school
8. Postcolonial theory
9. Laurence Venuti’s cultural-studies-oriented analysis
THE HOLMES/TOURY ‘MAP’ OF TRANSLATION STUDIES
‘Pure’
Theoretical (translation theory)
1)General
2)Partial
(a) Medium restricted
i) By machine: alone/ with human aid
ii) By humans: written/ spoken (consecutive or
simultaneous )
(b) Area restricted (specific languages)
(c) Rank restricted (word/sentence/text)
(d) Text-type restricted (genres: literary, business,
technical translations)
(e) Time restricted (periods)
(f) Problem restricted (specific problems e.g.
equivalence)
‘Pure’
Descriptive (DTS)
1) Product-oriented (examines existing translations,

single ST-TT pair or ST and many TTs)
2) Function-oriented (a study of context; ‘socio-

translation studies’; cultural-studies-oriented
translation)
3) Process-oriented (what happens in the mind of a

translator, e.g. Think-Aloud-Protocols)
‘Applied’
1) Translator training
a) Teaching evaluation methods
b) Testing techniques
c) Curriculum design
2) Translation aids
a) IT applications (machine, translation, corpora, translation
software (CAT tools), on-line databases, internet searches,
online forums)
b) Dictionaries, grammars
c) expert informants
3) Translation criticism
a) Evaluation of translations
b) Revision of students’ translations
c) Reviews of published translation
THE VAN DOORSLAER ‘S MAP
Translation
1) Lingual mode (interlingual, intralingual)
2) Media (printed, audiovisual, electronic)
3) Mode (covert/ overt translation, direct/indirect
translation, mother tongue/ other tongue translation,
pseudo-translation, retranslation, self-translation, sight
translation, etc.)
4) Field (political, journalistic, technical, literary, religious,
etc.)
Translation Studies
1) Approaches (cultural. Linguistic)
2)Theories (general translation theory, polisystem theory)
3) Research methods (descriptive, empirical)
4) Applied translation studies (criticism, didacticts,
institutional environment)
THE VAN DOORSLAER’S TAXONOMY
Strategies - the overall orientation of the TT:
a) Free translation
b) Idiomatic translation
c) Functional translation
d) Literal translation (sentence by sentence, word for
word, interlinear)
e) Source-oriented approach
f)Target-oriented approach
g) Foreignizing
h) Exoticizing
i) Neutralization
j) Localization
k) Domestication
Acculturation Adaptation
Amplification Borrowing
Calque Coinage
Compensation Concision
Condensation Denominalization
Direct transfer Dilution
Expansion Imitation
Implicitation Interchange
Interpretation Modulation
Modification Paraphrase
Recategorization Reformulation
Addition Omission
INTERDISCIPLINARITY
“A true interdiscipline is... not easily understood,

funded or managed in a world divided along
disciplinary lines, despite the standard pieties…
Rather it is an entity that exists in the interstices of the
existing fields, dealing with some, many or all of them.”
(McCarthy 1999 in Munday 2012)
Translation can have a primary (but not ancillary)

relationship with Linguistics, modern languages and
language studies, comparative literature, cultural
studies and philosophy.
The concept of translation:
What is the aim of translation?
*To introduce the reader to major concepts and models of

translation studies.
*Erases the borders between disciplines and research.
*Builds bridges between the humanities and the sciences to respond

to the needs of a globalized world.
* Destroys language walls.

 Most TT is:
◦ Product-orientated – focuses the translation
◦ Function-orientated – examines the context and

purpose of the translation
◦ Process-orientated – analyses the psychology of

translation and process
 But usually has elements of all three

 Medium restricted – man or machine?
 Area restricted – specific languages/cultures
 Rank-restricted – word/sentence/text
 Text-type restricted –different genres
 Time-restricted – historical view
 Problem-restricted – specific problems, e.g
equivalence
Is a graduate or a postgraduate qualification
a prerequisite for working as a professional
translator in your country?
If someone (individual, company, etc.)

needs a translation in your country, how do
they go about obtaining it? Try to trace the
phases of the process.
20
OVERVIEW
• Literal or free?
• Word-for-word or sense-for-sense?
• Chinese translation of Buddhist sutras
• Translation practice in Baghdad
• The Protestant Reformation in Europe
• Early attempts at more systematic theory
• Schleiermacher and the foreign

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO (46 BCE)
Translation of Greek Attic orators

‘And I did not translate them as an interpreter, but as
an orator, keeping the same ideas and forms, or as one
might say, the ‘figures’ of thought, but in language
which conforms to our usage. And in so doing, I did not
hold it necessary to render word for word, but I
preserved the general style and force of the language’
(Cicero 46 BCE/1997 CE: 364)

LITERAL OR FREE
Literal translation (or direct translation): a type of

translation that adheres closely to the surface structures
of the ST message, both in terms of semantics and
syntax.
Versus
Free translation (or oblique translation): a type of

translation that attempts to translate the meaning of the
word within its context and within target language
requirements.
ST JEROME (395 CE)
Translation of the Greek Septuagint and its Hebrew

version.
‘Now I not only admit but freely announce that in

translating from the Greek – except of course in the
case of the Holy Scripture, where even syntax contains a
mystery – I render not word-for-word, but sense-for-
sense’
(St Jerome 395 CE/1997: 25)

CHINESE TRANSLATION OF BUDDHIST SUTRAS
Wide-ranging project translating oral texts into written

form.
First phase: initial a zhìyì (word-for-word) strategy

adhere closely to the SL, often using transliteration.
CHINESE TRANSLATION OF BUDDHIST SUTRA
Second phase: the approach was later modified and the

Yìyì (sense-for-sense) approach was preferred.
Dào´ān’s (4th century) third preface to the translation

of the Prajñāpāramitā identifies
Five ‘losses’
Three ‘difficulties’
Kumārajīva (4th–5th century CE)

Xuán Zàng (7th century CE) advocated a translation
that replicated the style of the original text.
TRANSLATION PRACTICE IN BAGHDAD
• Abbāsid period (750–1250 CE)

Translation of Greek scientific and philosophical works
into Arabic
First method was literal with borrowings
Later methods were more sense-for-sense
But social, political and ideological factors involved

Groups of translators
THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN EUROPE
Humanist advances in the study of ancient Hebrew

and Greek (15th–16th centuries CE)
Use of translation of the Bible to challenge the Roman

Catholic Church and promote the vernacular languages
Martin Luther in Germany
William Tyndale in England
Étienne Dolet in France

FIDELITY, SPIRIT AND TRUTH
Fidelity, or faithfulness, Horace (65 – 8 BCE) dismissed

it as literal ‘word–for–word’ translation. However, in the
17th century it was identified as faithfulness to the
meaning rather than the words.
Spirit: (1) the Latin word spiritus denotes creative

energy or inspiration;
(2) the creative energy of a text or language
Truth (veritas) in the the sense of ‘content’ of the text.

EARLY ATTEMPTS AT MORE SYSTEMATIC THEORY
• Étienne Dolet (1509-1546), French scholar and

translator. In his 1540 manuscript La manière de bien
traduire d’une langue en aultre he set Five principles of
the process of translation in order of importance:
(1) The translator must perfectly understand the ST

(2) The translator should have a perfect knowledge of
both SL and TL
(3) The translator should avoid word-for-word
rendering
(4) The translator should avoid Latinate and unusual
forms
(5) The translator should avoid clumsiness
John Dryden (1631-1700) - English poet and translator.

In the preface to his translation of Ovid’s Epistles he
reduces all translation to three categories:
(1) metaphrase, or ‘word by word and line by line’

translation, which corresponds to literal translation;
(2) paraphrase: ‘[where the author’s] words are not so

strictly followed as his sense’ and which this more or
less corresponds to faithful or sense-for-sense
translation;
(3) imitation, a free adaptation, ‘forsaking both words

and sense’ (today’s adaptation)
Alexander Tytler (1747-1813) - Scottish historian and

professor. He defines a ‘good translation’ as being
oriented towards the target language reader and set out
three general ‘laws’:
(1) it should fully represent the ideas of the original

(2) it should render the style of the original
(3) it should have the ease of the original composition.
Yán Fù (1854-1921) - Chinese thinker and translator

who proposes three translation principles:
(1) xìn (fidelity / faithfulness / trueness)
(2) dá (fluency / expressiveness / intelligibility /

comprehensibility)
(3) yă (elegance / gracefulness)

SCHLEIERMACHER AND THE FOREIGN
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834). German theologian

and philosopher. In his seminal lecture Über die
verschiedenen Methoden des Übersetzens [‘On the different
methods of translating’] (1813) he expounded a Romantic
approach to interpretation based not on absolute truth but
on the individual’s inner feeling and understanding.
He distinguished two types of translator

The ‘Dolmetscher’ – commercial texts
The ‘Übersetzer’ – scholarly and artistic texts
Schleiermacher considers there to be only two paths open for

the ‘true’ translation:
‘Either the translator leaves the writer in peace as much as
possible and moves the reader toward him, or he leaves the
reader in peace as much as possible and moves the writer
toward him’
SCHLEIERMACHER AND THE FOREIGN
The two methods of translation are:

‘alienating’ or ‘foreignizing’: the value of the foreign is
emphasised by “bending” TL word-usage to try to
ensure faithfulness to the ST
‘naturalizing’: the foreign text is brought in line with

the typical patterns of the TL.
Direct Translation Techniques
Direct Translation Techniques are used when structural

and conceptual elements of the source language can be
transposed into the target language.
Direct translation techniques include:
• Borrowing
• Calque
• Literal Translation
Borrowing
Borrowing is the taking of words directly from one

language into another without translation.
Many English words are "borrowed" into other

languages; for example software in the field of
technology and funk in culture.
English also borrows numerous words from other

languages; abbatoire, café, passé and résumé from
French; hamburger and kindergarten from German;
bandana, musk and sugar from Sanskrit.
Borrowed words are often printed in italics when they

are considered to be "foreign".
Calque
A calque or loan translation is a phrase borrowed from

another language and translated literally word for-word.
Examples that have been absorbed into English include

standpoint and beer garden from German Standpunkt and
Biergarten; breakfast from French déjeuner (which now
means lunch in Europe, but maintains the same meaning of
breakfast in Québec).
Some calques can become widely accepted in the target

language (such as standpoint, beer garden and breakfast and
Spanish peso mosca and Casa Blanca from English flyweight
and White House).
An unsuccessful calque can be extremely unnatural, and can

cause unwanted humor, often interpreted as indicating the
lack of expertise of the translator in the target language.
Idiomatic translation
Idiomatic translation reproduces the message of the

original text but tends to distort nuances of meaning by
preferring colloquialisms and idioms where these do not
exist in the original.
Communicative translation
Communicative translation attempts to render the exact

contextual meaning of the original in such a way that
both content and language are readily acceptable and
comprehensible to the readership.

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Mirvan Xhemaili, PhD

Old French translation or

At first, a merely practical activity used to reinforce

Now, Translation is an academic field in its own right

Here we talk about written translation, rather than oral

1.Translation is more about people than about words

2.Translation is more about the jobs people do and the

3.Translation is more about the creative imagination

4.The translator is more like an actor or a musician (a

5.The translator, even of highly technical texts, is

Source text (ST) -------------Target text (TT)

E.g. An English text (ST) is translated into Albanian (TL)

One has to be brilliant in both languages.

Three categories of translation:

a. Intralingual or rewording (in the same language, e.g.

b. Interlingual or translation proper (from one language

c. Intersemiotic or transmutation (verbal signs into non-

In 2008, EU estimated the turnover of the translation

Translation has always been part of human

Only after the second half of the Twentieth Century, TS

The writings --Cicero and Horace Roman rhetorician

From the late 18th century to the 1960s – grammar-

replaced by the direct method or communicative

In the 1960s, the USA promoted the translation

The USA 1930s-1960s/70s – contrastive analysis of

More systematic, and mostly linguistic-oriented, approach

1. Jean Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet (French/English)

1) Product-oriented (examines existing translations,

2) Function-oriented (a study of context; ‘socio-

3) Process-oriented (what happens in the mind of a

Strategies - the overall orientation of the TT:

“A true interdiscipline is... not easily understood,

Translation can have a primary (but not ancillary)

What is the aim of translation?

*To introduce the reader to major concepts and models of

*Erases the borders between disciplines and research.

*Builds bridges between the humanities and the sciences to respond

* Destroys language walls.

◦ Product-orientated – focuses the translation

◦ Function-orientated – examines the context and

◦ Process-orientated – analyses the psychology of

 But usually has elements of all three

If someone (individual, company, etc.)

• Chinese translation of Buddhist sutras

• Translation practice in Baghdad

• The Protestant Reformation in Europe

• Early attempts at more systematic theory

• Schleiermacher and the foreign

Translation of Greek Attic orators

(Cicero 46 BCE/1997 CE: 364)

Literal translation (or direct translation): a type of

Free translation (or oblique translation): a type of

Translation of the Greek Septuagint and its Hebrew

‘Now I not only admit but freely announce that in

(St Jerome 395 CE/1997: 25)

Wide-ranging project translating oral texts into written

First phase: initial a zhìyì (word-for-word) strategy

Second phase: the approach was later modified and the