TRANSLATION

THEORY

1. What is translation?

a. Translation consists of
transferring the meaning of the
source language text into the
receptor language text.

What is translation?
B. Catford (1965: 20) Translation is
the replacement of textual
material in one language by
equivalent textual material in
another language. (Penerjemahan
adalah penggantian materi
tekstual dalam suatu bahasa
dengan materi tekstual yang
padan dalam bahasa lain.

What is translation?
C. Translating consists of
reproducing in the receptor
language the closest natural
equivalent of the source language
message, first in terms of
meaning and secondly in terms of
style (Nida and Taber, 1982)

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

What is translation?
E. Translation is a process of finding a TL
equivalent for an SL utterance.
(Pinhuhuck, 1977:38)
F. Translation is a craft consisting in the
attempt to replace a written message
and/or statement in one language by the
same message and/or statement in
another language. (Newmark, 1981:7)

What is translation?
G. (Mc Guire, 1980:2) Translation involves the
rendering of a source language (SL) text into the
target language (TL) so as to ensure that (1) the
surface meaning of the two will be approximately
similar and (2) the structure of the SL will be
preserved as closely as possible, but not so
closely that the TL structure will be seriously
distorted.

What is translation?
H. Translation is a transfer process
which aims at the transformation
of a written SL text into an
optimally equivalent TL text, and
which requires the syntactic, the
systematic and the pragmatic
understanding and analytical
processing of the SL (Wilss and
Noss, 1982).

What is the process of transferring the

meaning into the receptor lg. text?
Translation consist of studying the lexicon,
grammatical structure, communication situation,
and cultural context of the source language text,
analyzing it in order to determine its meaning, and
then reconstructing this same meaning using the
lexicon and grammatical structure which are
appropriate in the receptor language and its
cultural context.

3.

What are the characteristics of

language which affect translation?

a) Meaning components are packaged into

lexical items, but they are packaged differently
in one language than in another. Many times a
single word in the source language will need to
be translated by several words.
b) It is characteristic of language that the same
meaning component will occur in several
surface structure lexical items (forms).

3.

What are the characteristics of

language which affect translation?

c) It is further characteristics of
languages that one form will be used
to represent several alternative
meaning.
d) Whole sentences may also have
several functions. A question form
may be used for a nonquestion.
e) A single meaning may be expressed
in a variety of forms.

4. What is the goal of a

translator?
The goal of a translator should be to
produce a receptor language text
(translation), which is idiomatic; that is,
one which has the same meaning as the
source language but is expressed in the
natural form of the receptor language.
The meaning, not the form, is retained.

5.

Is it necessary to change the form

when translating?
Anything that can be said in one language can be said in another.
It is possible to translate. The goal of the translator is to keep the
meaning constant. Whenever necessary, the receptor language
form should be changed in order that the source language meaning
not be distorted. Since a meaning expressed by a particular form in
one language may be expressed by quite a different form in
another language, it is often necessary to change the form when
translating. It is not uncommon that passive constructions will
need to be translated with an active construction or vice versa,
depending on the natural form of the receptor language.

6. What is literal
Translation?

Literal translation or form-based

translation attempt to follow the
form of the source language.

7. What is idiomatic translation?

Idiomatic translation or meaning-based
translations makes every effort to
communicate the meaning of the source
language text in the natural forms of the
receptor language. The basic overriding
principle is that an idiomatic translation
reproduces the meaning of the source
language (that is, the meaning intended
by the original communicator) in the
natural form of the receptor language.

8.

How does a translator know that he is

successful in his translation task?

He will know that he is successful if

the receptor language readers do not
recognize his work as a translation at
all, but simply as a text written in the
receptor language for their
information and enjoyment.

9.

How does a translator make his translation

as dynamic as the original text?

For the translation to have the

same dynamics as the original, it
will need to natural and easy to
understand so that the readers will
find it easy to grasp the message,
including both the information and
the emotional effect intended by
the source language writer.

10.What is nonequivalence?
Non-equivalence at word level means
that the target language has no
direct equivalent for a word which
occurs in the text.

11.Why non-equivalence?
Culture-specific concepts (Religious
belief, a social custom, or a type of
food and tools).

12.How do we handle a nonequivalence

Translation by a more general word
(superordinate)
Translation by a more natural/less
expressive word
Translation by cultural substitution
Translation using a loan word or
loan word plus explanation

12.How do we handle a nonequivalence

Translation by paraphrase using
a related word
Translation by paraphrase using
unrelated words
Translation by omission
Translation by illustration

13.How do we establish a
translation project?
There are a number of matters which
include the text, the target, the
team, and the tools which need to be
clearly understood before beginning
a translation project.

13.How do we establish a
translation project?
Text refers to the source
language document which is to
be translated
Target refers to the audience.
For whom is the translation
being prepared?

13.How do we establish a
translation project?
Team refers to the people who will be
involved in the project. The team may
consist of
1) co-translator, where one is a specialist
in the source language and the other a
specialist in the receptor language,
2) a translator with capability to handle
both source language and receptor language
matters and ad advisor or consultant,
3) a committee working together with
specific responsibilities delegated to each one.

13.How do we establish a
translation project?
Tools refers to the written source
materials which will be used by
the translators as helps. These
include dictionaries, lexicons,
grammars, cultural descriptions,
etc.