Theory of Translation & Interpretation

TRANSLATING PROCESS
There are probably as many definitions of "translation" as there are of "sentence" One which is
not totally unattractive (and which has been used) is: "the replacement of a representation of a
text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language". But how
does this happen?

The following diagram shows how translation process occurs.

(From Translation and Translating-Bell, R.T.1991)

From the above description of the nature of the translation process, as a translator you have to be
aware of your role in making it happen. To do this, translator normally begin with deciding on
what method of approach to use in order to carry out the translating process. Following are the
two general approaches to translation you can choose from:

You start translating sentence by sentence for, say, the first paragraph or chapter to get the
feeling tone of the text, and then you deliberately sit back, review the position and read the rest
of the SL text.

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You read the whole text two or three times, and find the intention, register, tone, mark the
difficult words and passages and start translating only when you have taken your bearings.

Which of the two methods you choose may depend on your temperament, or on whether you
trust your intuition (for the first method) or your powers of analysis (for the second).
Alternatively, you may think the first method more suitable for literary and the second for a
technical or an institutional text.

The danger of the first method is that it may leave you with too much revision to do on the early
part and is therefore time wasting. The second method (usually preferable) can be mechanical, a
translational text analysis is useful as a point of reference, but it should not inhibit the free play
of your intuition. Alternatively, you may prefer the first approach for a relatively easy text, the
second for a harder one The process of translation is claimed to go on in the mind of the
translator, and each translator has her/his own approach to translation, so any scientific
investigation both statistical and diagrammatic, of what goes on in the brain during the process
of translating is remote and at present speculative. For that caveat, the hereby presented
translating process is supposed to be one point of reference.

When we are translating, we translate with four levels more or less consciously in mind: the SL
text level, the referential level, the cohesive level, and the level of naturalness.

The textual level

Working on this level, you intuitively and automatically-make certain "conversions"; you
transpose the SL grammar (clauses and groups) into their "ready" TL equivalents and you
translate the lexical units into the sense that appears immediately appropriate in the context of
the sentence.

Your base level when you translate is the text. This is the level of the literal translation of the
source language into the target language, the level of the literal translationese you have to
eliminate, but it also acts as a corrective of paraphrase and the paper-down of synonyms. So
apart of your mind may be on the text level whilst another is elsewhere. Translation is pre-
eminently the occupation in which you have to be thinking of several things at the same time.

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The referential level

You should not read a sentence without seeing it on the referential level. Whether text is
technical or literary or institutional, you have to make up in your mind summarily and
continuously, what it is about, what it is in aid of, what the writer's peculiar slant on it is.

For each sentence, when it is not clear, when there is an ambiguity, when the writing is abstract
or figurative, you have to ask yourself: What is actually happening here and why? For what
reason, on what grounds, for what purpose? Can you see it in your mind? Can you visualize it?
If you cannot, you have to "supplement" the linguistic level, the text level with the necessary
additional information from this level of reality, the facts of the matter.

The referential goes hand in hand with the textual level. All languages have polysemious words
and structures which can be finally solved only on the referential level, beginning with a few
multi-purpose, overloaded prepositions and conjunctions, through dangling participles to general
words.

The cohesive level

This is a generalized level linking the first and the second level It follows both th structure and
the moods of the text: the structure through the connective words (conjunctions, enumerations,
reiterations, definite articles, general words, referential synonyms, punctuation marks) linking
the sentences, usually proceeding from known information (theme) to-new information-
(theme)...

The second factor in the cohesive level is mood moving between positive and negative, emotive
and neutral. For example, you have to spot the differences between positive and neutral in, say,”
"pass away” and “die”, and between negative and neutral in “potentate” and “ruler”, etc. It is at
this level that the findings of discourse analysis are pertinent.

The level of naturalness

For the vast majority of texts, you have to ensure: (i) that your translation make sense; (ii) that
it reads naturally, that it is written in ordinary language, the commo grammar, idioms and words

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that meet that kind of situation. Normally, you can only do this by temporarily disengaging
yourself from the SL text, by reading your own translation as though no original existed.

You have to bear in mind that the level of naturalness of natural usage is grammatical as well as
lexical and through appropriate sentence connectives, may extend to the entire text.

In all “communicative translation whether you are translating an informative text, a notice or an
advert, naturalness is essential. That is why you cannot translate properly if the TL is not your
language of habitual usage. You have to ask yourself (or others): Would you ever see this in The
Times, The Economist, as a notice, on an appliance, in a textbook, or in a children's book? Is it
common usage in that kind of writing? How frequent is it? Check and crosscheck words and
expressions in an up-to-date dictionary. Note any word you are suspicious of.

Natural usage must be distinguished from "ordinary language": the plain non-technical idiom
used by Oxford philosopher for philosophical explanation, and "basic language", which is
somewhere between formal and informal. All three varieties - natural, ordinary, and basic- are
formed exclusively from modern language. However, unnatural translation is marked by
interference, primarily from the SL text, possibly from a third language known to the translator
including his own, if it is not the target language.

Natural translation can be contrasted with casual language, where word order syntactic structures,
collocations, and words are predictable. To get a feel for naturalness, you can read representative
texts and talk with representative TL speakers, and to get yourself fearlessly corrected. Beware
of books of idioms - the rarely distinguish between what is current and what is dead.

Naturalness is not something you wait to acquire by instinct. There is no universal naturalness.
Naturalness depends on the relationship between the writer and the readership and the topic or
situation. What is natural in one situation may be unnatural in another, but everyone has a
natural, neutral language where spoken and informal written language more or less coincide.

Combining the four levels

You should keep in parallel the four levels. They are distinct from but frequently impinge on
and may be in conflict with each other. Your first and last level is the text; then you have to
continually bear in mind the level of reality, but you let it filter into the text only when this is

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necessary to complete or secure the readership' understanding of the text, then normally only
within informative and vocative texts.

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