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The Relevance of Addition, Omission and Deletion (AOD) in Translation

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 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TRANSLATION
Vol. 27, No. 1-2, JAN-DEC, 2015

The Relevance of Addition, Omission and Deletion

(AOD) in Translation
VIPIN KUMAR SHARMA
Jazan Univeristy, Jazan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

Language has no boundaries and, with globalization resulting in the

mingling of international economic and cultural systems of different
countries making the entire world ‘a global village’, the notion only
gets further. This has obviously provided a common ground and
opportunities to the people of different nationalities, cultures,
religions, dialects and languages to communicate effectively to attain
their business objectives. Translation bridges the language gap by
comprehending, analysing, reformulating, and retextualizing the
source language texts to attain grammatical, syntactic, and
sociocultural equivalence. Translation evolved into a modern faculty
with scholars’ exemplary works making it hitherto more ambiguous
and complicated as I. A. Richards claims, “Translation is probably
the most complex type of event in the history of the cosmos” (Nida
1993: 1). As we realize a need to develop a holistic perspective, this
paper makes a seminal attempt to cover three vital aspects: addition,
omission and deletion (AOD) in translation to ensure a precise,
correct and judicious dissemination of current knowledge and
information that will facilitate not only the development of translation
studies but also to keep pace with the factors of both globalization
and localization.

Keywords: AOD, translation studies, globalization, acculturation,

intercultural, localization

1. INTRODUCTION

The demand of translation has been growing day by day due to rapid
development taking place around the world. Due to the demands
of business documentation on account of the industrial revolution that
began in the mid-18th century, some translation specialties have
2
VIPIN KUMAR SHARMA
become formalized, with dedicated schools and professional
associations (Wilson 2009).
Generally, we came across only two disciplines of translation in the
past, i.e., linguistics and comparative literature and this involved mainly
comprehension and criticism of the original text and its translation.
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language
text by means of an equivalent target-language text (Cohen 1986: 12).
Translation is producing the same meaning or message in the target
language text as intended by the original author and is the sole main
objective of a translator. Today, it is considered as equivalence relation
between the source and target texts and also as the most salient feature
of a quality translation. 
Translation is used as a generic term and the author keeps his/ her
study to written form to process the product only because
professionally, the term translation is confined to the written, and the
term interpretation to the spoken (Newmark 1991: 35). The written
form deals with translating the process (to translate; the activity rather
than the tangible object), a translation: the product of the process of
translating (e.g., the translated text), and translation: the abstract
concept which encompasses both the process of translating and the
product of that process (Bell 1991: 13).
A rational use of Addition, Omission and Deletion (AOD), will
definitely cater to many problems of a translator and obviously lure the
receiver's attention to the specific source – target context by making
addition of only relevant information, the omission will conceal, and
deletion will remove superfluous contents in the SL texts.
There is a shift in the status of translation from traditional style of
functioning to the modern, and the broader issues of context, history
and convention, as discussed in Susan Bassnett and Andre Lefevere’s
(2004: 123) co-edited work, Translation, History, Culture: A
Sourcebook, which states:
Once upon a time, the questions that were always being asked
were “How can translation be taught?” and “How can translation
be studied?” Those who regarded themselves as translators were
often contemptuous of any attempts to teach translation, whilst
those who claimed to teach often did not translate, and so had to
resort to the old evaluative method of setting one translation
alongside another and examining both in a formalist vacuum. Now,
the questions have changed. The object of study has been
redefined; what is studied is the text embedded in its network of
both source and target cultural signs and in this way Translation
3
THE RELEVANCE OF ADDITION, OMISSION AND DELETION (AOD) IN
TRANSLATION
Studies has been able to utilize the linguistic approach and to move
out beyond it.

2. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

There have been many studies carried out on these aspects but hardly
any dealing collectively with them all. This study deals with all these
three aspects based on a pragmatic approach and on the researcher
experience in translation. The significance of this study lies in the fact
that there is a strong perception of no addition, omission and deletion in
any form of Arabic and English translation and vice versa. The
researcher has tried to present ideas through various sources and
references of various scholars and suggested that this perception doesn’t
prevail in all the translations. The translators must be free to translate
ensuring its sanctity of meaning and purpose of source text to the target
texts language keeping socio-cultural scenario in mind. This study
presents a recommendation that may provide more freedom and clarity
to achieve the desired aim. It may confirm the previous studies partially
but will influence translators’ perception about AOD effectively in their
functional aspects.

3. LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The study presents suggestions on the basis of experience and diverse

situations encountered in translation process that make translation
vague, lengthy and ambiguous. The work explains the relevance of
AOD in translation process in general but not specifically between
English and Arabic and vice versa. The absence of previous studies on
these aspects is a major limitation of this study; hence it is heavily
dependent on individual experience, purpose and situations in which the
translators work.

4. LITERATURE REVIEW

Translation is not a new concept but it has roots in ancient history

where we find a lot of Arabic, Persian and oriental religious written
literatures translated into other languages. For instance, there exist
partial translations of the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh (2000 BCE)
into Southwest Asian languages of the second millennium BCE (Kohan
1986: 12). Due to centuries of close contacts and exchanges, translation
of the texts specific into Arabic flourished after Arabic script in the 5th
4
VIPIN KUMAR SHARMA
century progressed with the spread of Islam. In the beginning, texts on
politics in oriental and Greek languages were translated into Arabic.
This further developed into academic studies, later comprising of
Arabic and Persian translations of classical, scientific and philosophical
works of Arabs. Bible, Buddhist and other texts of oriental origins were
also translated into the European languages. These translations
exchanged knowledge between cultures, businesses and professions.
It got further boost during industrial revolution in the eighteenth
century when some translation specialties became formalized, with
dedicated schools and professional associations (Wilson 2009). This
was followed by new innovations in the electronic field that facilitated
computer-assisted translation (Hutchins 2000). Later, it advanced
further with the wider use of the Internet that fostered a world-wide
market for translation services and has facilitated language localization
(Snell-Hornby 2006).
Frequent movement of people for trade, business and other
purposes after 1950s resulted in an unprecedented socioeconomic
growth, prompting that translation no more remained merely “the
replacement of textual material in one language (source language) by
equivalent material in another language (target language)” (Catford
1965: 20) but a complex action in which someone provides information
about a text under new functional, cultural and linguistic conditions and
in a new situation, whereby formal characteristics are imitated as far as
possible” (Vermeer 1986: 36). Many scholars propounded translation as
- Christiane Nord gave the notion of “intercultural communication”;
Holz-Manttari used “intercultural cooperation”; R. Daniel Shaw used
“transculturation”; Andre Lefevere’s “acculturation” (Guo 1998:12),
and Hewson and Jacky Martin used “cultural operator”(1991: 131-135).
They all interpreted in their own style depending upon their cultures,
traditions, values, and religious notions of the target people that will
facilitate them to understand, introspect, explore,
formulate–reformulate, and retextualize the SL texts to achieve
grammar correctness, comprehensibility and sociocultural equivalence
for a sound growth of the people and society at large.

5. PRINCIPLE OF ADDITION

The intensive use of web based technology has made people idle and,
consequently, led to incorrect and unreliable translations of the source
texts into the target texts. The concept of ‘metaphrase’ and ‘paraphrase’
are not relevant in today’s hasty and busy life where people don’t have
5
THE RELEVANCE OF ADDITION, OMISSION AND DELETION (AOD) IN
TRANSLATION
adequate time to read and discuss superfluous texts. During translation,
when the source texts are translated, to make it more comprehensive,
the translator has to add few words to replace idioms, phrases and
calques to the target-language translation. However, this addition does
not remain same for all languages and cultures as Newmark (1988: 91)
righty stated that the information added to the translation is normally
cultural (accounting for the differences between SL and TL culture),
technical (relating to the topic), or linguistic (explaining wayward use
of words). The optimum use of addition adds clarity and brings local
transformation which is well supported by Van Dijk (1988b) who
describes that often additions are used to provide further information
about previous events, context, or historical background, and thus have
the function of explanation and embedding.
The translator has to be judicious in adopting this technique with
the sole purpose to provide the real, relevant, useful translated texts
depending upon the culture, styles, religions, etc., of TL and not hurting
the basic value, meaning and the intentions of the source texts and the
author as well. Bassnett (1992:14) relates language to “the heart within
the body of culture,” indicating that “the surgeon, operating on the
heart, cannot neglect the body that surrounds it, so the translator treats
the text in isolation from the culture at his peril”. The addition must be
adhered to, if not feasible in texts, may be kept in brackets, annotation
or footnote and such additional information is regarded as an extra
explanation of culture-specific concepts (Baker 1992) and is required
for correctness and easy comprehension.
John Dryden (as cited in, Kasparek 1983: 83) clarified ‘the
judicious blending’ of equivalents, for the expressions used in the
source language:
When [words] appear... literally graceful, it were an injury to
the author that they should be changed. But since... what is
beautiful in one [language] is often barbarous, may sometimes
nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a
translator to the narrow compass of his author's words: ’tis
enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate
the sense.

The translator has to see the purpose and target people especially
translating from European languages to Arabic and vice versa, where ‘if
ambiguity occurs in the receptor language formation and if the fact that
greater specificity may be required so as to avoid misleading reference’
and the concept of addition gains strength while translating from
6
VIPIN KUMAR SHARMA
implicit to explicit that ‘important semantic elements carried implicitly
in the source language may require explicit identification in the receptor
language’(Nida 1964: 227). The lexical and semantic differences
between two languages also depend upon translator’s linguistic
knowledge and word selection during translation process.

6. PRINCIPLE OF OMISSION

The translator strives hard to present the same or equivalent ideas of the
source texts into the target texts in a simple, brief, concise and correct
form with ‘faithfulness’ to target culture as Tourny (1980: 137) rightly
resolve, that not the translators were different to the textual relations
within the ST, but that their main goal was to achieve acceptable
translations in the target culture. There are cases where omission is
required to avoid redundancy and awkwardness (Nida 1964: 228) and
this strategy is particularly applied if the source language tends be a
redundant language.
Omissions mean dropping of word/s that usually takes place when
there is no equivalent word/s in the target culture. Ivacovoni (2009)
mentioned that omission meant dropping a word or words from the SLT
while doing translation. This procedure can be the outcome of the
cultural clashes that exist between the SL and the TL and it often occurs
while translating from English into Arabic texts. In fact, it is subtitling
translations where omission reaches its peak. The translator omits
words that do not have equivalents in the TT, or that may be ambiguous
or pose interpretation problems to the receptor. Translators often
neglect this concept of omission in vital translations apprehending that
it may cost and lack an effective communication than its utility to the
TL.
The vitality of the term ‘Omission’ has been well supported by
Dimitrio (2004 163) who believes that this concept has often been
neglected in translation studies. He states:
Whereas it has been amply demonstrated that many
translators, at least between Indo-European languages, exceed
their sources in length, comparatively fewer studies have
approached instances in which, for various reasons, translator
have not translated, 'omitted' something from the source-text in
their translation. Many recent dictionaries of translation
studies do not have any particular entry for term ‘omission’,
or (at least) for some of its partial synonyms, ‘implication’,
‘subtraction’, ‘economy’, ‘condensation’, or ‘deletion’.
7
THE RELEVANCE OF ADDITION, OMISSION AND DELETION (AOD) IN
TRANSLATION
Moreover, books on translation studies that incorporate
translation strategies tend to briefly mention omission, and
mainly in close connection with its more 'positive'
counterparts, i.e., addition and explication.

It has been seen that the source texts are full of jargons, idioms, phrases
and foreign words that differ in meaning to the target culture and
profession along with the lengthy contents where “the translator is
justified in pruning or eliminating redundancy in poorly written
informational texts, in particular jargon, provided it is not used for
emphasis (Newmark 1982: 149). Baker (1992: 77) further
acknowledges, “As with single words, an idiom may sometimes be
omitted altogether in the target text. This may be because it has no close
match in the target language, its meaning cannot be paraphrased or for
stylistic reasons”.
The researcher (an Indian), has a realistic example when he joined
this university (in Saudi Arabia) and hired a flat. During translating the
contract, before signing, he came across various translations of the same
reference done by different people verbally and in writing. This
enhanced the curiosity of the researcher to pen down few lines. These
references, actually, may be omitted or replaced with grammatically
simpler, shorter references without affecting the actual meaning. The
Arabic content, ‫قيرفلا نأثيحو‬ ‫يناثلا‬‫ةقشلاءارشيف بغر‬ ‫هعباوت وةروكذملا‬
‫ا‬, was
translated by the first translator as: Whereas the Second Party is
desirous of purchasing the said flat and all its appurtenant; by the
second as: And since the second party wants to buy the above
mentioned apartment. We can see an instance here, when the translator
may omit some redundant words to convey the intended actual meaning
in shorter sentences.
It is our wrong perception that omission leads to distort or dilute
the meaning of source texts but if the meaning conveyed by a particular
item or expression is not vital enough to the development of the text to
justify distracting the reader with lengthily explanations, translators can
and often do simply omit translating the word or expression in question
(Baker 1999: 40).

7. PRINCIPLE OF DELETION

Language professionals are usually required to undertake several

language functions and they require different types of language skills
like good memory, the ability to analyze meaning, and knowledge of
8
VIPIN KUMAR SHARMA
terminologies covering different skills - listening, speaking, reading,
and writing. The accuracy and correctness of a translator depend upon
the sound knowledge of the source language and the target language
alike. Comprehension, interpretation and translation befalling in
different settings and contexts sometimes create overlapping problems.
Deletion of information depends upon the internal conditions like socio-
cultural, ideology, values, and external, such as, content size and
ambiguous information.
Van Dijk (1988a, 1988b) has pointed out that deletion is an
effective routine in the news production process. Decisions to delete
information are based on external or internal considerations. External
conditions are size constraints or the impossibility of verifying an
important but controversial detail on the basis of other sources. Internal
criteria, by contrast, may involve subjective or group based
(professional as well as ideological) norms and values. Details that are
not consistent with the models, scripts, or attitudes of journalists or
those of the readers tend to be deleted.
While implementing the concept of deletion, a translator should
ensure the originality of the original texts and must not assume the role
of censor and surreptitiously delete or bowdlerize passages merely to
please a political or moral interest (Billiani, Francesca 2001). Besides,
the cultural and traditional aspects also contribute to adopt this concept
as Baker (1992: 40) acknowledges deletion as “omission of a lexical
item due to grammatical or semantic patterns of the receptor language”.
She took a step ahead in justifying that this strategy may sound rather
drastic, but in fact it does no harm to omit while translating a word or
expression in some contexts. If the meaning conveyed by a particular
item or expression is not vital enough to the development of the text to
justify distracting the reader with lengthy explanations, translators can
and often do simply omit translating the word or expression in question
(ibid.). 
We observe many Arabic words in Saudi contracts, which have
synonyms and quasi-synonyms, are used in traditional and business
translation. These synonymous binominals are frequently used in
Arabic contracts, merely for stylistic reasons (Emery 1989). At Jazan
University, some teachers are assigned with translation work of various
contracts and other documents from Arabic to English and the
translators then send the same to peers for proof reading. As observed
in these translations, it is often very difficult to keep both the words and
their synonyms in the same content. For instance, the translators while
translating the phrase ‫ةيلعف‬ ‫ةيعقاوو‬gave three different translations – first
9
THE RELEVANCE OF ADDITION, OMISSION AND DELETION (AOD) IN
TRANSLATION
member translated it as actual, efficient, second as practical, real, and
the third member translated as effectively. Then the researcher took
another phrase to confirm this and again found that they gave different
words in translation for the same phrase, ‫ سسألاوطورشلا‬- the first
translator as terms and conditions, the second as terms and bases and
the third as conditions. As evident, these synonyms make the translation
ambiguous and difficult to comprehend. The appropriate word, that
gives the correct and complete meaning, may be used and the others
may be deleted as these binominal synonyms as Mellinkoff (1982) has
termed as “worthless doubling”.
The translator should, in no case, exercise deletion as his right but
judiciously as subtly stated by Baker (1992: 40) that deletion may also
refer to pieces of content rather than restructuring for grammatical
purposes. This depends upon the purpose, target culture, values, and
vitality of texts being translated and the translator should take utmost
care to translate the original text into real, accurate and comprehensible
texts by virtue of his excellent and sound knowledge of both SL and
TL.

8. CONCLUSION

The emergence of ICT and web-based human translation techniques,

have indeed, posed a great challenge to the translator community. But
these web-based techniques without a translator provide inaccurate and
unreliable translations because the “gap” between the source culture
and the target culture remains beyond machine comprehension. While a
human translator equipped with in-depth knowledge of the source
language, the target language, culture, as Lotman claims “No language
can exist unless it is steeped in the context of culture” (see, Bassnett
1992: 14), would provide a simplified translation to the target readers.
A competent, bilingual and bicultural translator if execute these
techniques – Addition, Omission and Deletion with faithfulness,
judiciously and effectively, would undoubtedly translate ST accurately
and without any distortion. It would also facilitate not only the target
readers but, indeed, help substantially to shape the languages into which
they translate.
The translator should use formal and dynamic or functional
equivalence (Nida 1964) as competent translation entails a judicious
blending of functional and formal equivalents (Kasparek 1993). The
translator may use the concept of Ng and Bradac (1993) that states, any
presented reality can be constructed linguistically in more than one
10
VIPIN KUMAR SHARMA
form, and the availability of different linguistic forms for representing
reality provides language users with tools for deleting or stressing
particular aspects of reality. The translator, if exposed to and familiar
with the modern approaches to translation helps him emphasize more
on the communicative and functional nature of professional translation.
Subsequently, he/ she will be able to focus on “particular instantiations
of language use, in specific texts and contexts” (Colina 2002: 6). These
approaches will certainly bridge the gap between academic and
professional worlds of translation. A competent translator and good
translation work play a vital role in the concurrent phenomenon of
globalization, and eventually, in the development of civilization.
In view of this, the discussion presented in this paper intends to
foster a better understanding in terms of adopting the principles of
addition, omission and deletion (AOD) in translation process. It is
expected that this paper would provide a greater insight into these
concepts in translation that could further pave the ways for more
exploration and research studies on these concepts in future.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to Majid Gharawi, Director, English Language Center

(ELC) and Naif Masrahi, Assistant Director, ELC, Jazan University for
their guidance and consistent support and to the members of the ELC
who provided valuable input into the development of this paper,
namely, Tahir Ghamar, Saif, Muayad Muhammed and Osama
Mohammed.

DR VIPIN KUMAR SHARMA

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR,
ENGLISH LANGUAGE CENTRE
JAZAN UNIVERSITY, JAZAN, KSA
POST BOX: 114, POSTAL CODE: 4512
E-MAIL: VIPINARAVALI@GMAIL.COM
DRVKSHARMA@JAZANU.EDU.SA
PHONE: +966 581880160